Re-examining World Heritage and Sustainable Development

World Heritage is one of the most popular global program on conservation, with 1052 sites on the List in 165 countries. Uncontrolled development is one of the most significant threats affecting World Heritage sites. Yet, only in 2012 did the World Heritage Committee recommend the preparation of guidance on the integration of sustainable development issues within conservation and management strategies, as well as the revision of the Operational Guidelines to incorporate issues related to sustainable development. This chapter aims to analyse critically the processes that led to the preparation and adoption of the first policy on World Heritage and Sustainable Development. A first part analyses references to sustainable development in official documents, and then moves on to detail different unsustainable trends that have continued to affect World Heritage properties. Finally, this chapter analyses, using firsthand experience, the recently (November 2015) adopted 'Policy for the integration of a Sustainable Development Perspective into the processes of the World Heritage Convention.