The Nature and Scope of Cultural Heritage Resources Management in South Africa

Background

The creation of infrastructure during development projects is increasingly threatening cultural resources all over the world. It is no different in South Africa. During these development activities, which may include mining, infrastructure development, housing, among others, the cultural heritage resources are affected and are in danger of being destroyed or damaged.

It is, however, not possible to preserve all cultural resources, as it may not be economically viable or because there may be a number of similar heritage sites. It therefore is of the utmost importance that a balance needs to be struck between progress (development) and the conservation of cultural resources.

Cultural heritage resource management, sometimes called cultural resources management (CRM), deals with the minimisation of impact on the fragile heritage. This gave rise to the concept of heritage management, mainly (but not exclusively) dealt with by private heritage practitioners.

The aims of CRM involves inter alia that an economically viable solution is being found where the human (cultural) environment can coexist with modern-day developments. One such option is the possible tourism value that can be derived from properly managed heritage sites.

Before continuing, it is necessary to define a few principal concepts related to heritage management.

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  Culture: The concept of culture has been defined many times before. A basic definition is that it includes everything made by humans (Coertze, 1977). This includes physical objects such as furniture and consumer goods, but also intangible creations such as music, language, and religion (Burden, 2000).

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  Heritage: Heritage refers to the legacy from the past (Meyer, 1995).

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  Conservation: All the processes used to maintain a place or object in order to keep its cultural significance. The process includes preservation, restoration, reconstruction, and adaptation (ICOMOS, 2013).

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  Preservation: This is the action of ensuring that something is not neglected or lost (protection) and includes maintenance of the fabric of such a site in its existing state (ICOMOS, 2013).

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  Restoration: To bring a place or object back as close as possible to a known state, without using any new materials (ICOMOS, 2013).

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  Reconstruction: To bring a place or object as close as possible to a specific known state by using old and new materials (ICOMOS, 2013).

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  Rehabilitation: The repairing and/or changing of a structure without necessarily taking the historical correctness thereof into account (NMC, 1983).

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  Adaptation: Adaptation means changing a place to suit the existing use or a proposed use (ICOMOS, 2013).

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  Heritage Management: The concept of CRM developed in the United States during the 1970s. From here it gradually reached Europe, Britain, Australia, and New Zealand. It later also spread to the African continent where it reached South Africa in the early 1990s (Van Vollenhoven, 1998).