When most people think of cultural heritage, they imagine artifacts like paintings, sculptures and historical monuments. But the concept of heritage has evolved over time to include not only physical items but also a variety of intangible elements, such as traditions, languages and values. It includes the natural landscape, too, which is often part of a community’s identity and serves as a source of inspiration and creativity.
A key question is how best to assess the damage caused to cultural heritage by armed conflict or disasters. The first step is to understand the value that heritage holds for communities. Heritage has many benefits, from promoting tourism to providing jobs for the local workforce. The Heritage Alliance has a tool called CreativeCH that helps cities and regions in Europe make use of their heritage resources for social and economic purposes.
The Heritage Alliance also works with governments to develop policies that support their cultural sector and help them protect their heritage from armed conflict or disasters. One way to do this is by implementing the Declaration on the Protection and Promotion of the Cultural Heritage in Armed Conflicts. The Declaration identifies three main categories of cultural heritage: tangible, intangible and natural. It emphasizes the importance of heritage for a society’s development, and stresses that protecting cultural heritage during armed conflict is a fundamental human right.
It outlines the different ways that heritage can be damaged and offers guidance on how to assess the damage. It recognizes that the loss of heritage impacts a society’s identity and sense of place, affecting its social cohesion. It also highlights the need for a holistic approach to assessment, which is complex and requires multi-disciplinary expertise.
To achieve a comprehensive assessment of the impact of armed conflict or disaster on cultural heritage, it is important to identify the various value systems that underlie the heritage itself. The most common value system is the traditional one, which focuses on material authenticity and preservation. This is a good starting point, but it is important to recognize that heritage is not only about materials and their condition. It is also about the ideas and meanings woven into them, as well as the role they play in a society’s heritage values, beliefs and identities.
The use of explosive weapons in populated areas during armed conflict places cultural heritage at great risk. In order to avoid this, armed forces need better training in the protection of cultural heritage, including a better understanding of its social and emotional value. This should go beyond the existing training that focuses on laws and policy. It should include the training of troops in art history, so that they have a more complete understanding of what constitutes heritage and how it can be damaged and destroyed. This is the only way to ensure that armed forces can assess and protect the cultural heritage of their host countries during conflict or disasters. Otherwise, this heritage is at risk of being lost forever.