ABSTRACT
This chapter reviews key international standard-setting documents that have engendered or reflected shifts in the cultural heritage management paradigm. It analyzes the role the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural organization (UNESCO) has played at the forefront of this discussion, and the challenges UNESCO has encountered. The chapter focuses on the role heritage has to play in sustainable development in all its dimensions, encompassing dimensions of identity and social well-being in addition to more narrowly defined economic goals. It argues that community involvement is the central fulcrum that enables cultural heritage to be leveraged as a driver of sustainable development in its fullest, most diverse and most democratic sense. The purpose of community-based heritage conservation is not to encourage people to return to some nostalgic past, but rather to use heritage as the divining rod for determining the direction each community wishes to take in its future development.
