The answer in my view is that value is part of the conservation process.
The historic environment is the physical evidence.
HOwever, what we pass on to future generations is what (out of all that) we value. Conservation is about working with and recognising those values. Things like conservation plans and impact assessment are the process by which we articulate those values.
In practice, values have to be explored in the light of a particular proposal. The question is not what is the absolute value of this site, but how will this proposal impact on the value of the site and how can we mitigate that?
The National Trust have been doing Statement of Significance which is one model for recording values, and David Baker has been exploring these for churches, but I still think that this is only half of the equation.
>>> "Fernie, Kate" <[log in to unmask]> 07/03 4:49 pm >>>
The definition of the historic environment on page 5 of discussion paper 1
is:
'The historic environment is all the physical evidence for past human
activity, and its associations, that people can see, understand and feel in
the present world.
- It is the habitat that the human race has created through conflict and
cooperation over thousands of years, the product of human interaction with
nature.
- it is all around us as part of everyday experience and life, and it is
therefore dynamic and continually subject to change'.
Amongst SMR managers in recent years there has been a lot of discusion about
extending the scope of SMRs to become HERs and the need to bring together
records about the historical and the natural environment. We're all quite
used to the idea of records that include archaeology, buildings, industrial
sites, shipwrecks and which include sites from the 20th century. But there
has been less discussion about the importance of recording people's
understanding of a site. We all know that different people see sites very
differently and place value on sites for reasons that include personal,
aesthetic and cultural significance. I wonder how SMRs might incorporate
these values and the information might be used to assess the significance of
the site to conservation?
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