ABSTRACT
With the expanding role of World Heritage sites as platforms for sustainable development, in which integrated conservation of culture and nature is recognized as key to achieving resilient societies, the number of stakeholders concerned has grown along with new demands for transparency and participation. This chapter presents key actors and organizations involved in governing World Heritage, seeking to determine whether participatory frameworks are successful. It demonstrates a complex web of stakeholders involved in lengthy processes shaped by power dynamics and competing interests, ranging from environmental lobbyists to natural resource extractors. Good governance is a prerequisite for sustainable development. This principle was built into the early action programmes on sustainable development that emerged from the Rio Declaration and Agenda 21 in 1992. Attempts have been made to link principles of good governance in environmental conservation and heritage management.
