World Heritage and the Local Community: The Case of Atapuerca (Burgos, Spain)

Abstract

As social constructions, heritage properties require the participation of all their stakeholders, especially in the case of UNESCO World Heritage Sites. The Atapuerca (Burgos, Spain) World Heritage Site is used as a test case for assessing the fulfilment of the local community’s development expectations, perceptions, and values. This paper is the first formal attempt to ascertain the opinions of residents in the surrounding villages — Ibeas de Juarros and Atapuerca — regarding the initiatives taken by the authorities, and the changes produced, since the site was included in the World Heritage List. The results show that many improvements can be made with the aim of democratizing the decision-making process, ensuring the involvement of the local community and improving their quality of life, in order to fulfil the spirit and recommendations of UNESCO.

Keywords:

• heritage management
• UNESCO
• World Heritage
• local community
• participation
• Atapuerca
• Spain

Acknowledgements

Our thanks go to the Mayor of Ibeas de Juarros, Juan Manuel Romo Herrera and the Mayoress of Atapuerca, Raquel Torrientes, for their help with the fieldwork logistics. We also thank Paola Fernandez, coordinator of the Ibeas de Juarros Civic Centre and Ana Isabel Vera, Labour and Local Development Agent in Atapuerca and Olmos de Atapuerca, and the residents who offered to express their opinions. This work was funded by an Erasmus Mundus Sud-UE Post-doctoral research grant to María Eugenia Conforti at the Prehistoric Archaeology Research Group, University of Burgos, Spain. It is also part of a research project under the PATRIMONIA Programme of the UE INCUAPA (Conicet-UNICEN), Argentina.

Notes

1. The hamlets belonging to the Ibeas de Juarros municipality are not included in the census as none of them have land in the Sierra. We have included the hamlet of Olmos with Atapuerca as it does include terrain in the Sierra area. Data source: National Statistics Institute.

2. A military base, Castrillo del Val, lies west of Ibeas de Juarros. It has jurisdiction over a large part of Sierra de Atapuerca that is property of the Defence Ministry.

3. Numbers of tourists to the Atapuerca System (sites, visitor reception centres and Museum of Human Evolution): 374,107 in 2011, 254,775 in 2012, 257,691 in 2013, and 283,076 in 2014. Source: Burgos Tourist Observatory Bulletin.