World Heritage Concepts, Management and Conservation

Since its creation 50 years ago, the World Heritage Convention has been lauded as one of the most successful international expressions of cooperation, whilst at the same time being widely criticised as producing an overly commercialised and globalised sense of heritage. Offering an in-depth discussion of both sides of the debate, this book explores these issues by discussing the following topics:
• How the World Heritage Convention was conceived and how it is operationalised;
• How the World Heritage concept is currently being used and misused;
• The benefits of inscription – perceived and actual existential threats faced by World Heritage Site managers including climate change, urban development, overtourism, military action and natural disaster;
• The future of World Heritage as an instrument for conservation and economic development.
Case studies from a global range of World Heritage Sites are included throughout, to showcase some of the successes and also missuses of World Heritage status.
This book will be of pivotal interest to students and scholars in the fields of tourism, heritage, archaeology, natural resource management and development studies.