Management guidelines for the conservation of heritage resources in Wakkerstroom, Mpumalanga

Abstract

The term ‘heritage’ is used loosely to describe everything that is inherited or handed down to future generations from the past (Lowenthal 2005). Natural heritage resources usually refer to land, water, animals and plants. Cultural heritage resources include buildings, art, traditions and practices of cultural and historical value (Lowenthal 2005). Heritage can also be described as tangible ‘a monument, group of buildings, or site of historical, aesthetic, archaeological, scientific, ethnological or anthropological value’ (Kirshenblatt-Gimblett 2004); or intangible such as ‘all forms of traditional and popular culture such as collective works originating in a given community, and based on tradition’ including music, dance and traditional medicine (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (Civallero 2007; UNESCO 1989).