https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4960-3331
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Abstract
Although the World Heritage Sustainable Tourism Programme has great potential for addressing the Sustainable Development Goals, it faces a continual lack of on-the-ground community-level tools. This paper explores the potential for community-level intervention to guide the evolution of rural landscapes under the World Heritage Sustainable Tourism Programme. This community-level intervention comprises three phases (knowledge coproduction, perspective planning and community action) and nine stages (village representative assembly, internalising knowledge workshop, field trip and casual interviews, knowledge demonstration, joint fieldwork, perspective discussions, tangible landscape element design, intangible landscape element coordination, and effectiveness evaluation). Our case study, Dragon Tail Village, reveals that community-level interveners should facilitate community development by recognising the important role of rural communities—co-owners of heritage sites—and rural landscapes—sets of attributes with heritage value. Our findings therefore improve the understanding of the World Heritage Sustainable Tourism Programme’s driving rationale for community development.
Acknowledgements
We sincerely acknowledge the villagers of Dragon Tail Village for their acceptance and friendliness to the interveners, and we are also grateful to all levels of government in Wulingyuan for their support of our survey and practiceThe Wulingyuan World Natural Heritage Conservation Research and Communication Center is thanked for its assistance in the research and intervention, and the UNESCO World Heritage Training and Research Institute for the Asia and the Pacific Region [WHST-0014] and the Ministry of Science and Technology of the People’s Republic of China, National Key R&D Program [2016YFC0503308] is acknowledged for their fundings. We are also appreciative of the contributions of Hong Li, Xiaoqing Xu, Qing Xu, Yumeng Chen, Chensi Zhao, Yilei Dong, Anqi Cheng, Xiaotong Guo, Andi Zhuang, Li Chen, Huayu Han, Jingyu Li and Yuqi Zhang to the survey and intervention efforts.
Authors’ contributions
Jing Li: Conceptualisation, Investigation, Data curation, Formal analysis, Methodology, Software, Visualisation, Original draft, Revision. Chen Yang: Conceptualisation, Investigation, Methodology, Software, Visualisation, Resources, Supervision, Validation, Review Original draft, Revision. Yichen Zhu: Conceptualisation, Investigation, Methodology, Visualisation, Original draft, Revision. Feng Han: Conceptualisation, Funding acquisition, Investigation, Methodology, Project administration, Resources, Supervision, Validation, Review.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Notes
1 One of the focal areas of the sustainable tourism programme is the use of toolkits to develop sustainable tourism policies and strategies at the local level. See: https://whc.unesco.org/en/tourism/#strategy or http://whc.unesco.org/sustainabletourismtoolkit/how-use-guide for more information.
A number of heritage sites have established such strategies, such as the Cultural Landscape of Bali Province and Wadden Sea. See:
https://www.waddensea-worldheritage.org/sustainable-tourism-strategy
2 Dragon Tail Village encompasses five resident subgroups. Each village subgroup has two representatives. These community representatives act as bridges between local officials and villagers, sharing the knowledge of local people and delivering information back to them.
3 There are several outsiders operating accommodation and catering businesses in Dragon Tail Village as investors.
Additional information
Funding
Notes on contributors
Jing Li
Jing Li is a Ph.D candidate in the Department of Landscape Architecture, CAUP, Tongji University. Her expertise includes World Natural Heritage adaptive-management and rural landscape conservation. She holds a Bachelor of Science in Geology from School of Ocean and Earth Science, and Master of Landscape Architecture from CAUP, Tongji University.
Chen Yang
Chen Yang is an associate professor in the Department of Landscape Architecture, CAUP, Tongji University. His research interests include heritage landscape conservation and management, digital heritage landscapes, and spatial pattern recognition technologies. He holds a Master of Landscape Architecture from Tongji University and Ph.D from Queensland University of Technology.
Yichen Zhu
Yichen Zhu is a post-doc in CAUP, Tongji University. Her expertise includes urban regeneration and design, heritage landscape, sustainable tourism; She holds a Bachelor of Architecture from South China University of Technology, Master of Landscape Architecture from University of Pennsylvania, Doctor of Engineer in Architecture from Tongji University.
Feng Han
Feng Han is a professor and the former director of the Department of Landscape Architecture, CAUP, Tongji University. Her current research interests include World Heritage and Sustainable Tourism, and cultural landscape theories. She holds Bachelor and Master of Landscape Architecture from Tongji University, Ph.D from Queensland University of Technology.