Preserving Cultural Landscapes: A Cross-Cultural Analysis

Abstract

In the past two decades, a variety of policy frameworks have been designed worldwide for the protection and stewardship of cultural landscapes. While the National Park Service (NPS) in United States has developed a system of preparing Cultural Landscape Inventories and Reports (CLI & CLR) to address sites under their administration, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) has its own criteria for designating cultural landscapes within an international forum. This document attempts to outline and critically analyze these two approaches with the aim of exploring their applicability to the Indian milieu. The ultimate aim of the research is to attempt the formulation of a methodological framework for the implementation of cultural landscape preservation in India. This is achieved by first exploring endemic Indian notions about time, space, nature and culture, followed by the proposal of a few key concepts or broad recommendations that should, in my opinion, guide any cultural landscape preservation efforts in the Indian context. This is supported by a discussion of a few best practices at sites both in India and worldwide where appropriate solutions were sought. Lessons from these as well as the analysis of the NPS and UNESCO models together give rise to a methodological framework form initiating cultural landscape preservation in India.