ABSTRACT
This chapter will take the operation of the World Heritage Convention as an influential example of (1) the way the cultural and the natural are demarcated, and (2) the increasing influence, in environmental protection, of international-scale political processes. Changes over the past two decades to the World Heritage definition of, and criteria for inscription as, cultural landscapes are considered. The new category of the ‘associative cultural landscape’ has emerged in recognition of the intangible dimensions of landscape, and interactions between the physical and the spiritual/ symbolic. This process has been influenced by academic debates over culture and nature, by the increasing political voice of indigenous and non-Western peoples, and by the practical difficulties of managing inhabited protected areas. Australia’s Uluru-Kata Tjuta National Park, originally nominated under natural heritage criteria, and later successfully renominated as an associative cultural landscape, is used as a case study.
