Conservation through Community Participation #ARCHITECTURE #NEPALITECTURE # CONSERVATION #ESSAY

  

 

 

 

 

 

 

Essay on Conservation through Community Participation

 

By

NEPALITECTURE

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Abstract

At present, architectural protected area management and conservation is moving, towards participatory management, as a progressive shift in both concept and approach. Nepal’s conservation history can provide a good example of this paradigm shift in architectural conservation. This paper include a case of Bhaktapur which focuses on conservation through community participation. Also Macao as a case study to understand the dynamics and nuances of community participation in heritage management and conservation. The case study analyzes contexts of community participation in Macao and explains why direct dialogue between local citizens and the government is not necessarily effective.

Keywords:  community, conservation, preservation, heritage and participation

Introduction

Conservation is professional use of a combination of science, art, craft, and technology as a preservation tool and also refers to issues of identification, policy, regulation, and advocacy associated with the entirety of the cultural and built environment. This broader scope recognizes that society has mechanisms to identify and value historic cultural resources, create laws to protect these resources, and develop policies and management plans for interpretation, protection, and education. Typically this process operates as a specialized aspect of a society's planning system, and its practitioners are termed built or historic environment conservation professionals. Architectural conservation is the process by which individuals or groups attempt to protect valued buildings from unwanted change.

A process by which a community mobilizes its resources, initiates and takes responsibility for its own development activities and share in decision making for and implementation of all other development programs for the overall improvement is known as community participation. In Nepal’s case there are some architectural conservation through community participation examples of traditional town like: Panauti, Bhaktapur, Nala, Bandipur etc. However, in some cases the agenda-setting process of conservation still continues to be dominated by government and international agencies, keeping the local people aside and undermining their role.

Preservation is a social construction. What is to be preserved does not depend on pre-established legislations or political ideologies; rather, preservation depends on the value that is perceived by a specific group of people from a specific place and time in terms of what they wish to preserve and transmit to future generations (Gilmour, 2006). Otherwise, preservation and our cultural identity will not make any sense.

Case Study:

1.      Bhaktapur 

Bhaktapur is known as Khwopa in local language and also known as the city of the temples, is a city in the east corner of the Kathmandu Valley in Nepal. It is located in and serves as the headquarters of Bhaktapur District in Bagmati Pradesh of Nepal. It is administratively divided into 10 wards. Bhaktapur has three major squares full of towering temples that comprise some of the finest religious architecture in the country. Cultural life is also proudly on display. Along narrow alleys, artisans weave cloth and chisel timber, squares are filled with drying pots, and locals gather in courtyards to bathe, collect water, play cards and socialise. To view this tapestry of Nepali life, visitors must pay a town entry fee, which helps fund temple repair and maintenance.

Bhaktapur Municipality encourages as much of public participation in tourism and heritage conservation as possible. Surveys have shown that almost all of Bhaktapur's tourism entrepreneurs and craftsmen are locals. If any amount of benefit accrued from the growth of tourism trade will have direct bearing on local family and life. Keeping this in mind, Bhaktapur Municipality is effortful of giving a boost to tourism and in the long run bringing about a qualitative change in the life of Bhaktapur's people.

Active public participation in conservation-oriented works is encouraging. For example, in the renovation of the Bhairavnath temple alone, the municipality could secure over 300 man-days of voluntary work from the locals. The average man-days that each of the municipality's major conservation project involved are estimated around 200. As for the number of people that are employed by the tourism industry in Bhaktapur comes around 1,160. And it is the 2.9% of the total labor force of the heritage city. Evidently the percentage shows that the tourism trade still needs encouragement and incentives from all quarters including the central government.

2.      Macao

Macao and officially the Macao Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China, is a city and special administrative region of the People's Republic of China in the western Pearl River Delta by the South China Sea. Portuguese traders discovered the land and used it as their gateway into China for trade. Portuguese occupation of the land began in 1957 and continued well into the late 20th century until 1999 when the Portuguese administration officially ceded Macao back to Chinese rule.

Community participation is an amorphous process that differs as the cultural context changes. The local government is a key player in the Macao’s heritage politics. The local government has attempted to initiate participatory programs from the local public to engage in the city’s heritage management. On one hand the local citizens are expecting the government to initiate more effective participatory programs for them to play a part in the stewardship. On the other hand, community participation is, in fact, a challenge because the society is not accustomed to being directly engaged by the government in civic matters before the handover. Nurtured by the Portuguese colonial rule in the enclave, some of these civil society groups have established longstanding connections with both the local citizens and the government. While the role of civil society groups may not have an apparent presence in Macao’s heritage preservation at the moment, this paper sees the potential of engaging local society groups in strengthening the quality of framework. Community participation in Macao's heritage management with the proposed Joint fact-finding. Traditional associations such as neighborhood groups are very conscious of Macao’s preservation matters. If being incorporated into a strategic framework, the role of ‘local associations’ can be a valuable component to help to facilitate meaningful community participation in Macao.

 

Conclusion

Community participation and conservation are directly connected terms which support each other at every aspect because conservation is mainly done by community participation in different countries. Likewise; Bhaktapur and Macao which initiate their locals to participate in conservation of different project of the city. By educating the locals and promote their culture a town can get various benefit from that as well as people. In Nepali context various group or community have culture to take part in conservation program like cleaning of hities in different lunar calendar.