In recent years
there has been a shift in defining cultural heritage away from
assessing sites as discrete locations, towards seeing heritage
places, objects and values as embedded in a cultural landscape. The
cultural landscape results from an organic evolution involving both
human and natural processes. In environmental terms, the concept of
cultural landscapes supersedes the notion of the pristine
wilderness, untouched by human hands. It also shows what is
needed locally is a clear appreciation that the landscape contains
our roots and our stories but that it offers many different
narratives and identities. Any one of these can serve as a
value system to unify a tract of countryside and guide a landscape
management plan.
