Riconoscere, conservare e gestire il Patrimonio Mondiale dell’Umanità attraverso il coinvolgimento delle comunità locali

In 2002, on the occasion of the celebrations for the 30th anniversary of the Unesco Convention, the World Heritage Committee, to guarantee a fair balance between conservation, sustainability and development, appeals to the international community to promote an «active involvement of local communities and indigenous people in the identification, protection and management of our World Heritage Properties» (Budapest declaration, 2002). In 2007, the same committee implemented the four strategic objectives of the World Heritage Convention (Credibility, Conservation, Capacity Building and Communication) with a new objective (Communities), reaffirming the importance of enhancing the role played by communities in the implementation of the Convention. The need to abandon a dirigiste approach in the intervention on cultural heritage in favour of a participatory approach is reflected in the Unesco Operational Guidelines for implementing the World Heritage Convention, which, over the last few decades, have been modified in relation to this paradigm shift. In light of this, it is interesting to investigate if and how the participation and empowerment of local communities are effectively reflected in the activities of World Heritage identification, safeguarding and management, with particular reference to the Italian context.