Nature and islands: Rethinking the cultural heritage of New Zealand’s protected islands

In whatever form cultural heritage may take  – a structure, a building, an archaeological site, or a memorial  – it is a key societal concern, revealing who we have been, where we have come from, and who we are. Although the word ‘heritage’ and its attendant ideas have existed for centuries, only from the 1980s did it become the focus of intensive academic inquiry (Smith, 2012). Heritage is now widely acknowledged to mean anything from the past that is considered important enough to be handed on and conserved as a legacy for future generations (and that includes the positive, the undesirable, the grand, or the ordinary).