scholarly journals Mining and Europe’s World Heritage Cultural Landscapes

Resources ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
pp. 18
Author(s):  
Michael Tost ◽  
Gloria Ammerer ◽  
Alicja Kot-Niewiadomska ◽  
Katharina Gugerell

This study examines the four cases of World Heritage protected cultural landscapes in Europe that are characterized by mining in order to identify the role mining plays today in such cultural landscapes, the legal requirements for their protection, and also the exploration and exploitation in these areas and the differences that exist between the five European countries concerned. Using a qualitative comparative case study approach, the authors find that active mining is taking place in the Austrian case, and exploration is happening adjacent to the German/Czech protected cultural landscape. The legal protection of the cases is mainly based on heritage and monument protection legislation as well as environment protection legislation including the Natura 2000 network. Differences exist, as other than in Germany, exploration and mining could be allowed in protected areas, which is also contrary to the position of the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization, and the International Council on Mining and Metals.

2021 ◽  
pp. 097300522199143
Author(s):  
Sneha Kumari ◽  
Nisha Bharti ◽  
K. K. Tripathy

Indian agriculture has always been less profitable. Several factors contribute to the low profitability in agriculture, but less value addition, weak value chain system and weak market linkage are some of the most important factors. Producer companies are helping small farmers to emerge in the market. The farmer producer organisations (FPOs) linked with the producer companies are the best example of collective actions. The collective actions for the agriculture value chain (AVC) have resulted in a decrease in the cost and an increase in revenue. FPO and producer company find a good place in the underpinning theory of collective action theory. This study examines various successful examples of strengthening AVC through cooperatives and tried to identify various factors responsible for the success of these collectives. This study has adopted a case study approach. Three successful cases, that is, Vasundhara Agriculture Horticulture Producer Company Ltd: a multi-state FPO, Abhinav Farms Club and Sahyadri Farmer Producer Company have been selected for the case study based on their successful interventions for strengthening the agriculture value chain. Primary and secondary data has been collected through telephonic interviews from the board of directors, chairman and the members of the FPO. Both primary and secondary data have been collected to compare the three cases for AVC models. The data has been analysed using a comparative case study approach. The parameters of AVC have been identified using the Delphi technique. The study has found that collective actions have helped the farmers to strengthen the agriculture value chain. The study also concluded that leadership played an important role in defining the success of the FPOs. The study brings out future directions to excel in AVC through collectives.


2018 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 112-121
Author(s):  
Balaji Venkatachary ◽  
Vishakha Kawathekar

The widely recognized definition of ‘Cultural Landscape’ in current practice is borrowed from UNESCO as Combined works of Nature and of Man.1 They are complex entities consisting of multiple layering of built-unbuilt components including intangible cultural aspects. These components are interrelated and interdependent. The landscape evolves together through combined natural and cultural processes. In current discourse and practice of heritage management, value-based assessment is a widely accepted approach. Evaluation of cultural landscapes for its Significance and Value is a complex process that requires an understanding of interwoven layers of components and attributes.2 Systematic understanding of such relationships between components and attributes is still in its infancy. Amongst various such identified intangible agencies, this study chooses to explore music. A study of secondary sources was undertaken. Cultural landscapes nominated as World Heritage Sites and identified Indian sites were systematically examined to understand various components and attributes. Using the indicators from this study and the theoretical framework of sociomusicology, a research design was prepared. Recognizing the historical association of music with the sites on the Kaveri river basin in peninsular India, a reconnaissance study was undertaken for onsite validation. Musical associations were spatially mapped for analysis and the findings are presented. Systematic understanding of the relationships between components of a cultural landscape and intangible cultural traditions is still in its infancy. The undertaken study is an exploratory work that focuses on understanding the relationship between components of a cultural landscape and ‘intangible attributes’, especially music. A study of secondary sources was undertaken in two parts. In the first part, concept of cultural landscape has been explored. Cultural landscapes nominated as World Heritage Sites were systematically examined to understand various components and attributes. The knowledge helped in formation of indicators for evaluation of cultural landscapes. In the second part of the study, selected case studies of Indian cultural landscapes were studies with the developed indicators. Musical traditions existing in these sites were theoretically reduced to basic components and mapped for analysis.


Author(s):  
Melissa F. Baird

This chapter presents research on the UNESCO World Heritage cultural landscape Uluru-Kata Tjuta in Australia. Drawing from ethnographic interviews of heritage experts and archival research, the chapter examines the politics embedded within managing and interpreting cultural landscapes in World Heritage contexts. It asks: how do heritage designations affect claims to traditional homelands, resources, and subsistence and resource management practices? The data show how largely apolitical and ahistorical narratives reconfigured the historical and social conditions of the park and redefined Traditional Owners' relationship to Country. It argues that state and national laws and World Heritage and national park policies work in ways that force Traditional Owners to make claims within systems that are largely incompatible with their custodial responsibilities, knowledge practices, and customary laws.


Author(s):  
Funda Varnaci Uzun ◽  
Mehmet Somuncu

The “cultural landscape” has been a fundamental concept in geography and was first defined as “landscape modified by human activity” by the German geographer Friedrich Ratzel in 1890. It was introduced to American geography in the 1920s by Carl O. Sauer (American geographer). Since the 1960s, the concept has been widely used in human geography, anthropology, environmental management, and other related fields. One of the major factors that contributed to the recent popularity of its use, on a global scale, was the adoption of cultural landscapes in the International Convention for the World Heritage Convention by the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) in 1992. In this chapter, the basis of this concept, its emergence, and its relationships with other scientific disciplines, particularly geography, will be discussed. Moreover, the place of cultural landscapes within protected areas and UNESCO world heritage sites will be more specifically addressed.


Author(s):  
Ken Nicolson

Case study 3: The cluster of villages in the New Territories, known collectively as Ping Shan, is one of the oldest traditional, rice-growing settlements in Hong Kong. It is a mixture of organically evolved and associative cultural landscapes, the latter comprising an auspicious fung shui hill resembling a crab and a strategically positioned pagoda that are credited with bringing fortune and prosperity. British colonial control of the district was enforced by construction of a police station on the fung shui hill which symbolically killed the ‘crab’. The subsequent decline of the village’s fortune is believed to stem from this action and was compounded by the development of a new town on the adjacent farmland. A recent change of use for the police station to a clan museum has lifted the spirits of the villagers but the cultural landscape has been irreversibly depleted by inappropriate land use zoning that permitted urban encroachment and cumulative impacts from major road and rail projects.


Author(s):  
Kate Vieira

This chapter tells the story of the research. It first lays out the research question: How do transnational families’ experiences with migration-driven literacy learning shift across their lifespans in relation to changing political borders, economic circumstances, and technologies? It then describes the field sites in which the question was addressed: Latvia, Brazil, and the United States. Next, it outlines the reasoning behind the author’s methodological choices. Specifically, it elaborates on the author’s use of a comparative case study approach to develop the book’s central concept, “migration-driven literacy learning.” In doing so, the chapter describes how the project entailed both “reasearching across lives” and “researching across continents.” Finally, it offers a brief overview of the rest of the book.


2011 ◽  
Vol 206 ◽  
pp. 331-351 ◽  
Author(s):  
Wanxin Li

AbstractChina promulgated the Open Government Information Decree and Measures of Environmental Information Disclosure (Trial) in 2007, but the Pollution Information Transparency Index revealed the poor implementation of disclosing environmental information in 113 cities in 2008. Adopting a comparative case study approach, this article uses a combination of the “cultural roots” and “webs of dialogue” analytical frameworks to analyse the pilot environmental information disclosure programmes in Zhenjiang, Jiangsu province, and Hohhot, Inner Mongolia from 1999 to 2000. It finds that when the programme was top-down, the commitment, perception and resources of leadership determined its success and nondisclosure did not receive any public attention. However, when environmental NGOs are actively engaged, pressure can be from the bottom up, webs of dialogue can be established, and the public can be empowered to seek and use environmental information actively in development decision-making and redressing pollution harms.


Afrika Focus ◽  
2012 ◽  
Vol 25 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Inge Brinkman

In most of the literature on the subject, urban and rural areas are presented as real physical entities that are geographically determined. Obviously such an approach is important and necessary, but in this contribution I want to draw attention to ‘the urban’ and ‘the rural’ as ideas, as items of cultural landscape rather than as physical facts. This will result both in a history of ideas and a social history of the war in Angola as experienced by civilians from the south-eastern part of the country. The article is based on a case-study that deals with the history of south-east Angola, an area that was in a state of war from 1966 to 2002. In the course of the 1990s I spoke with immigrants from this region who were resident in Rundu, Northern Namibia, mostly as illegal refugees. In our conversations the immigrants explained how the categories ‘town’ and ‘country’ came into being during colonialism and what changes occurred after the war started. They argued that during the war agriculture in the countryside became well-nigh impossible and an opposition between ‘town’ and ‘bush’ came into being that could have lethal consequences for the civilian population living in the region. This case-study on south-east Angola shows the importance of a historical approach to categories such as ‘urbanity’ and ‘rurality’ as such categories may undergo relatively rapid change – in both discourse and practice. Key words: landscape (town, country and bush), war, south-east Angola 


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