World Cultural Heritage Management Toolkit: Heritage Impact Assessment. Features and Prospects for Use in Russia

Марушина Н.В.

doi:10.7256/2310-8673.2023.1.39770

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Urban Studies

Reference:

Marushina, N.V. (2023). World Cultural Heritage Management Toolkit: Heritage Impact Assessment. Features and Prospects for Use in Russia. Urban Studies, 1, 60–77. https://doi.org/10.7256/2310-8673.2023.1.39770

World Cultural Heritage Management Toolkit: Heritage Impact Assessment. Features and Prospects for Use in Russia

Marushina Natalia Vladimirovna

ORCID: 0000-0001-9923-6918

Senior Research Associate, Likhachev Russian Research Institute for Cultural and Natural Heritage; Leading Research Associate of the Urban Research Department, Scientific Research & Project Institute "Spetsrestavratsia"

191023, Russia, St. Peteburg, Bank lane, 3, of. 3

rvm_0307@mail.ru

Other publications by this author

DOI:

10.7256/2310-8673.2023.1.39770

EDN:

JPSBYU

Received:

09-02-2023

Published:

04-04-2023

Abstract: This study focuses on Heritage Impact Assessment (HIA), which is one of the elements of the World Heritage protection system and aimed at maintaining the Outstanding Universal Value. Due to the absence in the domestic scientific literature of works devoted to a generalizing understanding of the goals and objectives of Impact Assessment in the system of cultural heritage protection, the author focuses on revealing the content side of the concept of Impact Assessment, examines the process and reasons for the introduction of HIA as an independent tool for planning, managing changes and achieving public consent, identifies and analyzes the key principles for its implementation. Based on a consistent analysis of the provisions of international and domestic normative and methodological documents, as well as the practice of the Heritage Impact Assessment, conclusions are drawn about the aspects of the interpretation of the content, problems and prospects for using this tool for managing World Heritage in Russia. Attention is paid to the relevance and importance of Impact Assessments for the conservation of the Outstanding Universal Value of urban World Heritage sites and properties located in the urban environment. As a result of the study, the author formulated recommendations aimed at improving the effectiveness of the HIA and its full integration into the national heritage protection system.

Keywords:

Heritage Impact Assessment, Outstanding Universal Value, World Heritage List, value-based approach, heritage management tools, urban heritage, managing change, planning, public consent, proactive approach
This article is automatically translated.

The solution that would greatly simplify the work with the World Heritage could be the formation of separate lists of projects that can have an impact on a specific object. At the same time, the basis for including a certain type of projects in such a list should not be the area of the World Heritage site (as provided for by the already mentioned Draft Law), but its outstanding universal value, i.e. the totality of all its valuable features and their vulnerability to a specific type of threats.

Drawing up a technical task for conducting an impact assessment by the authorized heritage protection body, on the one hand, will contribute to the unification of approaches to the implementation of HIA at the national level, on the other hand, will provide the necessary technical and substantive control.

Taking into account the interdisciplinary nature of the HIA, it is advisable to focus on the development of an independent regulation on impact assessment outside of the GCE (just as environmental impact assessment is regulated by Federal Law No. 174-FZ of 11/23/1995 "On Environmental Expertise") and provide for the possibility of involving experts of various specialties in the study.

The procedure for reviewing heritage impact assessment reports at the national level also needs to be improved. In order to ensure the true effectiveness of the HIA, the result of reviewing the research materials should be not only the revision of the reports themselves, but above all the revision of design decisions, if they are able to affect the value characteristics of the heritage. Reports should be sent to the World Heritage Center, the content and conclusions of which are beyond doubt neither by the expert community, nor by public authorities, nor by local communities. The HIA recommendations agreed upon in this way should become the main one for making decisions by regional public authorities, in particular, on permissible changes in the structure of the historical urban environment. This will contribute to improving the national system of heritage protection, achieving social harmony, and, most importantly, strengthening the role of heritage in society and strengthening cultural identity.

All of the above indicates that the practice of implementing HIA in the Russian Federation requires an equally attentive approach to both the procedural and substantive aspects of impact assessment and, as a result, to the development of regulatory and methodological foundations for the use of this tool in Russia.

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A REVIEW of an article on the topic "World Cultural Heritage Management Tools: Heritage Impact Assessment. Features and prospects of use in Russia". The subject of the study. The article proposed for review is devoted to the features and prospects of using the toolkit "...world cultural heritage management: Heritage Impact Assessment..." in Russia. The author has chosen a special subject of research: the proposed issues are investigated from the point of view of urbanism, international, environmental and constitutional law, while the author notes that "Over the past 50 years, the approaches to heritage protection approved by the Convention have been constantly evolving, supplemented by new mechanisms and tools, but without changing the general orientation towards a comprehensive understanding of the human environment an environment in which cultural and natural elements are equally significant." The NPA of the Russian Federation, normative and methodological documents prepared by UNESCO and its advisory bodies (including the Convention, guidelines for the implementation of the Convention, 1992, § 47 and for the implementation of the Convention, 2019, § 172) relevant to the purpose of the study are being studied. A large volume of Russian and foreign scientific literature on the stated issues is also studied and summarized, analysis and discussion with these opposing authors are present. At the same time, the author notes: "The World Heritage protection toolkit began to form and develop immediately after the adoption of the Convention." Research methodology. The purpose of the study is determined by the title and content of the work: "... the full-fledged use of such a tool as HIA requires the introduction of appropriate norms into national legislation", "Despite the fact that in recent years HIA has become quite widespread in Russia, the principles of its implementation in our country are actually quite far from the original ideas laid down by supporters making HIA an independent tool for working with heritage in general and world Heritage in particular." They can be designated as the consideration and resolution of certain problematic aspects related to the above-mentioned issues and the use of certain experience. Based on the set goals and objectives, the author has chosen a certain methodological basis for the study. The author uses a set of private scientific, special legal methods of cognition: "methods of content analysis and systematization in relation to scientific publications on impact assessment on various aspects of the human environment, as well as normative and methodological documents prepared by UNESCO and its advisory bodies." In particular, the methods of analysis and synthesis made it possible to generalize approaches to the proposed topic and influenced the author's conclusions. The most important role was played by special legal methods. In particular, the author used formal legal and comparative legal methods, which made it possible to analyze and interpret the norms of acts of Russian legislation and international law, to compare various documents. In particular, the following conclusions are drawn: "A comparison of the provisions of these documents and an analysis of the practice of implementing HIA became the basis for conclusions about the specifics of using this tool for the protection of world heritage in Russia, as well as its relevance for managing changes occurring in the urban environment," etc. Thus, the methodology chosen by the author is fully adequate to the purpose of the article, allows you to study many aspects of the topic. The relevance of the stated issues is beyond doubt. This topic is important in the world and in Russia, from a legal point of view, the work proposed by the author can be considered relevant, namely, he notes "There are still no studies and works in the domestic scientific literature devoted to a generalizing understanding of the goals and objectives of impact assessment in the system of protection of cultural heritage", "The peculiarities of conducting HIA in Russia are caused by There are two main reasons: firstly, the lack of provisions in federal legislation regulating the procedure for fulfilling international obligations to protect the world Heritage, and secondly, there is not always sufficient training of specialists involved in the implementation of the HIA." And in fact, an analysis of the opponents' work should follow here, and it follows and the author shows the ability to master the material. Thus, scientific research in the proposed field is only to be welcomed. Scientific novelty. The scientific novelty of the proposed article is beyond doubt. It is expressed in the specific scientific conclusions of the author. Among them, for example, is the following: "... impact assessment in a broad sense is a tool for determining the degree or scale of impact caused by various processes and projects on the human environment and its individual components." As can be seen, these and other "theoretical" conclusions "The effectiveness of impact assessment is determined, not least by its proactive nature: conducting HIA at a time when all decisions have already been made and the project documentation has de facto been agreed, in most cases turns into a simple formality" can be used in further research. Thus, the materials of the article as presented may be of interest to the scientific community. Style, structure, content. The subject of the article corresponds to the specialization of the journal "Urbanistics", as it is devoted to the features and prospects of using the tools of "... world cultural heritage management: Heritage Impact Assessment ..." in Russia. The article contains an analysis of the opponents' scientific works, so the author notes that a question close to this topic has already been raised and the author uses their materials, discusses with opponents. The content of the article corresponds to the title, since the author considered the stated problems and achieved the goal of his research. The quality of the presentation of the study and its results should be recognized as improved. The subject, objectives, methodology, research results, and scientific novelty directly follow from the text of the article. The design of the work meets the requirements for this kind of work. No significant violations of these requirements were found. The bibliography is quite complete, contains publications, NPAs, international acts and documents to which the author refers. This allows the author to correctly identify problems and put them up for discussion. The quality of the literature presented and used should be highly appreciated. The presence of scientific literature showed the validity of the author's conclusions and influenced the author's conclusions. The works of these authors correspond to the research topic, have a sign of sufficiency, and contribute to the disclosure of many aspects of the topic. Appeal to opponents. The author conducted a serious analysis of the current state of the problem under study. The author describes the opponents' different points of view on the problem, argues for a more correct position in his opinion, based on the work of opponents, and offers solutions to problems. Conclusions, the interest of the readership. The conclusions are logical, specific "... attention is drawn to the contradiction between paragraph 4.1 of GOST R 58203-2018 itself and Appendix B to this document, the first of which indicates the role of the federal heritage protection authority in the development of the technical specification, and the second calls the customer responsible for the preparation of such a task, without establishing anywhere in the text the correspondence between by the customer and the authority", etc. The article in this form may be of interest to the readership in terms of the systematic positions of the author in relation to the issues stated in the article. Based on the above, summing up all the positive and negative sides of the article, I recommend publishing it.

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World Cultural Heritage Management Toolkit: Heritage Impact Assessment. Features and Prospects for Use in Russia