See "Development Opportunities"
See "Understanding Heritage Resources"

A Vision for the Future

Heritage development in Latin America and the Caribbean will be a conscious economic, spiritual, and creative process, moving along the way to fulfill our dreams of a society that has pride in and respect for its heritage and culture, a society that values cultural and ethnic diversity, that is conscientious and ethical, that respects itself and the rights of others, that promotes a sense of self identity among peoples and nations, that encourages sustainable development that grows both inwards and outwards, and that encourages growth within an equitable framework.

CAPACITY BUILDING

Successful and sustainable heritage resource development is a series of partnerships and strategic alliances amongst governments, businesses and local communities. The foundation for the information and understanding of the heritage resource is the community of experts in the disciplines relevant to the resource and its development. The mechanisms suggested to enable experts to know of each other and work together was the development of a network of experts. This was conceived to take three different forms, all co-existing at the same time when the process is complete.

Database

The first step is to undertake a survey of all known experts and encourage them to add the names of others so that a large database of experts is created. This database will list people from a wide diversity of disciplines, both academic and applied, both from LAC countries, and also from abroad, but with expertise in the LAC areas.

Network or Association

A subset of the database will be an association or active network of people who communicate and meet regularly as a group of professionals sharing information and experience at professional meetings. This network will be able to provide a wide range of advice on policy, technical aspects, and best practices in the field. The group will also provide assistance in the development of infra-structures, both academic and economic, to promote sustainable development of heritage resources. Finally the group will be able to draw on world experience and expertise to assist in the development of legislation and regulatory practices.

In a more general way, the existence of a large association or network will encourage the media to come to it for advice and information on subjects related to heritage. In this way the association can help to bridge the often large gap between science and the public, by acting as informal interpreters for television, radio, and the print media. Sub-committees will be set up specifically to address specific issues ranging from best practices to education and interpretation.

The Association can develop in partnership with museums, aquariums, and other organizations, a series of travelling programs and exhibits to promote best practices and guidelines on the development of sustainable heritage projects.

Business Centre

To encourage business in a positive and enabling fashion, the workshop conceived of a business centre model. The business centre will house people who are interested in the application of development to heritage resources, and who have the expertise to facilitate the process. This centre will be able to define best practices, provide guidelines, link stakeholders, and broker deals for the developers, local communities, and governments. The purpose of the centre will be in part to break down the barriers and alleviate the distrust amongst the stakeholders.

The business centre will develop a web site and an electronic newsletter that will promote ideas and opportunities.

Capacity-Building

Without undertaking a survey, but simply operating from common knowledge amongst the group, it was apparent that although the expertise in LAC countries is impressive, it is simply not extensive enough to handle the demands for heritage resource development. Thus, the first step in building the needed capacity is to undertake a "gap analysis." This requires the development of an assessment of what skills and expertise is needed, and an assessment of what the current levels are in LAC countries. The difference between these two is the gap that needs to be filled.

Future Experts

As a first approximation, the workshop listed at least the following as skill areas that need to be developed (doubtless more will become apparent as the surveys proceed): conservation, preparation, archaeology, anthropology, heritage management (including formal CRM training), heritage interpretation, community programming, negotiating, conflict resolution, aboriginal awareness training, environmental assessments, tourism, private sector partnering, trouble-shooting, and informal heritage awareness training (also characterized as "converting bad guys into good guys"). The group further recognized that there were essentially three levels of expertise involved: The highly trained academics, a "para" or technical group who have some academic, but mostly practical training, and a community-level group, some of whom will be volunteers, other part-time, and still others serving constantly.

Certification

To be a qualified member of the network and association, there will need to be a process of certification, both of individuals, and also of organizations. The agent that can begin this process is the business centre. Eventually the process of certification can spread so that different levels and different disciplines would be certified by other organizations, who have themselves become certified as training or assessment institutions. Certification has many positive aspects. It provides credibility to the professionalism of its members, and gives status to the entire field by virtue of the increased capacity it provides. There are innumerable examples of professional groups that require certification in the cultural and natural resource fields that can be used as models.

BEST PRACTICES MODELS

Much of the information presented in this report forms the basis for a preliminary best practices model. To be effective, the model will need to be elaborated and made specific. Throughout the workshop a number of universal principles for cultural resource management arose. These have been gathered together to form an example of how a first approximation might be made of at least one aspect. Others will need to be developed and filled out as time goes on. These merely demonstrate the form of how this might be accomplished. It was also emphasized that while there are some universal guidelines in cultural resource management, the guidelines for a given country or even region will need to be developed locally with assistance from outside, and worked out within the larger framework suggested by the universal guidelines. This model of regional and national specificity is true of all such guidelines and best practices.

UNIVERSAL GUIDELINES FOR HERITAGE RESOURCE MANAGEMENT

"Development divorced from its human or cultural context is growth without a soul."

Sustainable Heritage Development is a Partnership Amongst Government, Developers, and Local Communities founded on solid knowledge of the resource.

Guidelines ·1

Build Awareness by Ensuring Local Involvement

People are the key to success. Each citizen has an individual responsibility to respect and preserve their heritage. To be effective, local people must be enabled to participate in decision making, either directly or through representatives.

Guideline ·2

Develop a Knowledge Base of the Resource by Identifying, Classifying, and Inventorying

Heritage resources must be identified, classified according to risk or value, and inventoried. The state or nation responsible must develop an appropriate inventory and the specialized expertise to create and maintain these inventories.

Guideline ·3

Demonstrate the Intrinsic and Monetary Value of the Heritage Resources by Valorization

Heritage resources must be seen to have both monetary and intrinsic value (valorization). Interdisciplinary teams are needed to assess cultural, historical, natural, social, and esthetic importance.

Guideline ·4

Safeguard the Heritage Resources in the Long-Term by Local Protection, Preservation, and Conservation

Heritage resources must be preserved, appropriately conserved and safeguarded, so that they can be developed for the benefit of present and future generations. Appropriate laws, regulations, fiscal, financial, administrative mechanisms should be developed to ensure the appropriate preservation and development of heritage resources.

Guideline ·5

Sustain the Heritage Resource by Maintaining and Interpreting It Through Associated Enterprises

Preservation of the heritage resources requires maintenance, protection, and development. This is the foundation of good development; ongoing maintenance and development should lead to increased accessibility and utility of the heritage resources buy introducing them into a community's daily life. This is also a significant part of the means of disseminating information about the heritage resource and further enhancing the opportunities for development.

Guidelines ·6

Reduce Conflict of Interest by Legislating Primacy of Protection to Heritage Resources

Heritage conservation legislation must take priority and have primacy over other legislation that allows or regulates exploitation. This power of place is an important principle in ensuring the sustainability of any development project that has heritage resources as its base.

Guidelines ·7

Enhance Value and Build Local Capacity by Integrating Local Communities in Development Projects

Heritage resource development must show consideration for integrating the resource information and meaning into the economic and social activities of the surrounding community, not just a visiting community.

NATIONAL STRATEGIES

National strategies are part of the long-term planning and general preparedness that any nation must have if it is to be enabled to manage its heritage resources properly. These strategies can be a series of actions that will take place in a short or relatively long period of time – five to 50 years. The actions are placed together so that they support each other, but are not directly dependent one upon the other. In making this recommendation, the group took guidance from the current work being carried out in support of biodiversity programs around the world. National strategies build on generally understood principles of good management, infrastructure, and needed capacity, but are largely constructed within the countries of origin. These are complex ideas, collectively developed and negotiated because they commit a country to a course of action.

Once again, without attempting to proscribe the process or content, the workshop recognized certain common elements that will need to carried out in each case. On this basis, it is possible to build a template for all of LAC that can be used to develop national strategies within a larger framework:

The first is undertake legislative analysis for LAC. This will be a country by country assessment of legislative preparedness to handle heritage resource management.

The second is to embark on a process of discovery that will bring to light (at least within the security of the project) as many of the currently unknown heritage resources as possible.

These will be combined with the known to develop a national inventory or national register of heritage resources. Databases such as these, with appropriate security protocol, priority-setting methods are a part of all good cultural resource management processes.

Processes will be outlined that enable the capacity-building and best practices modelling.

The various actions called for are combined together in a master plan that is published and made available for public comment and suggestions.

When the public consultations have been completed and the document reassembled on the basis of the comments, it can be implemented as a model for individual nations to work from as a model.

In summary the major steps are a survey, inventory with a common database format, a template guidelines, and a template Strategy, all of which are used to create regional and nationally specific guidelines, inventories, and strategies.

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