ABSTRACT
UNESCO bestows the World Heritage tag on cultural or natural sites of Outstanding Universal Value. The prestige carried by World Heritage recognition, and the promise of enhanced tourism revenues consequent upon it, is the incentive on offer for the restoration of these sites. This chapter examines the basis on which these sites might have been traditionally valued, and examines whether identification as a World Heritage Site preserves and builds further on that valuation, or actually destroys it. Although the notion of sustainability newly informs the discourse on heritage, it is largely restricted to concern about the damage inflicted by increased tourist traffic. It is only when the basis of traditional valuation in the vicinity of these sites is understood that sustainability can be integrated into the discourse on World Heritage in a more informed way. Finally, until recognition is extended to sites containing fossilised remains of dinosaurs and other pre-historic creatures – sites which have provided vital clues to how land masses and pre-historic life evolved over time – the conception of Outstanding Universal Value will remain seriously limited and deeply flawed.
