ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the evolution of thinking within International Council on Monuments and Sites (ICOMOS) on the role of cultural heritage in relation to the development agenda. It also considers the implications of the new United Nations Sustainable Development Goals and the Policy on the integration of a sustainable development perspective into the processes of the World Heritage Convention, all of which were adopted in 2015. ICOMOS went on to discuss further the complex and often dialectic relationship between cultural heritage and development at its 1978 ICOMOS Conference in Moscow and Suzdal on Protection of Historic Cities and Quarters in Urban Development. ICOMOS has long since seized the opportunity to rise to the challenges of ensuring the full integration of cultural heritage into the wider realm of human development. Human ecology needs to have a much higher profile in the discourse on engagement of cultural heritage within sustainable development.
