Introduction

It has been widely accepted for several decades that heritage has to-and must be-regarded as a resource for societies to develop. The oft-referred to 1992 Rio Conference put this approach under the spotlight when it assumed the need for a balance to be struck between the conservation of environmental values and resources and appropriate levels of well-being for the groups of people with links to them. It is easy to draw a parallel between the protection of cultural heritage and socio-economic development; in current times it is impossible to disassociate these two elements from one another.