•Various late-modern accelerations and shifts in people’s relationship with the past—-a growth in the perception of vulnerability and uncertainty

•Shifting economic and demographic process of deindustrialisation leading to widespread redundancy of many forms of building and sites

•The development of ‘experience’ as a marketable commodity

•The growth of domestic and international leisure travel and the accompanying restructuring of the tourist gaze

•The diversification and segmentation of heritage to make it marketable to more varied audiences

•The widespread commercialisation of the past

Reference

Heritage Critical Approaches, Rodney Harrison

The Heritage Cycle diagram gives us an idea how we can make the past part of our future (Simon Thurley, 2005). In a clockwise direction the wedges and arrows read:

•  By understanding (cultural heritage)
  •     people value it 
• By valuing it
  •     people want to care for it
• By caring for it
  •     it will help people enjoy it
• From enjoying it
  •     comes a thirst to understand 
• By understanding it………..etc

References:

• Simon Thurley, Into the future. Our stategy for 2005-2010. In: Conservation Bulletin [English Heritage], 2005 (49).
• ICOMOS, International Cultural Tourism Charter. Principles And Guidelines For Managing Tourism At Places Of Cultural And Heritage Significance. ICOMOS International Cultural Tourism Committee. 2002.

Cultural Heritage is an expression of the ways of living developed by a community and passed on from generation to generation, including customs, practices, places, objects, artistic expressions and values. Cultural Heritage is often expressed as either Intangible or Tangible Cultural Heritage (ICOMOS, 2002).

•Heritage is a distinctly modern concern, in the sense in which the question of what is ‘old’ and what is ‘new’ belongs to a peculiarly modern sensibility. This sensibility arises from the experience of modernity and its relationship to time, ordering and uncertainty(or ’risks’) (Reference: Heritage Critical Approaches, Rodney Harrison )

The recent progress in conservation of cultural heritage in China is reflected in the ongoing consolidation of the foundation for its heritage work. China’s Third National Heritage Site Inventory, launched in the past decade and lasting four and one-half years, was the largest ever carried out in the country. Special surveys of the Great Wall, the Grand Canal, the Silk Road, and underwater heritage resources were conducted at the same time. As a result of these surveys, the number of registered immovable cultural properties soared from 300,000 to 760,000, while the number of state priority protected sites increased from 750 in 2000 to 4,296 today. In addition, the number of priority protected sites at regional and local levels also increased significantly.

CULTURAL HERITAGE CONSERVATION IN CHINA
https://www.getty.edu/conservation/publications_resources/newsletters/31_1/practices_achievements.html

• 

Some countries, mainly in East Asia, have long recognised the importance of non-material heritage, but the West was slow to recognise as heritage-worthy both living heritage and intangible values associated with places or objects. Where intangible values of places, such as aesthetic value, were recognised as heritage-worthy these were seen as expert defined values rather than community-defined values. Social value was seen as a confirmation of the heritage value of the place rather than an independent aspect of heritage value. In the Western tradition the main criteria for identifying heritage sites have been architectural style and historical significance.

Reference

INTANGIBLE HERITAGE IN CONSERVATION MANAGEMENT PLANNING:
THE CASE OF ROBBEN ISLAND, International Journal of Heritage Studies, 2004, Harriet Deacon