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HERITAGE Asia – Pacific (heritAP)

A Network of Heritage Practitioners supported by WHITRAP Shanghai

Impact Assessment for World Heritage II: Steps and Processes

Keywords: Impact Assessment WHITRAP ICCROM
WHITRAP Shanghai and ICCROM together have organized training course on Impact Assessment for World Heritage (IAWH) since 2012. Because of the pandemic, ICCROM held the webinar to introduce the basic contents of IAWH. Encouraged by ICCROM, WHITRAP Shanghai translated the video into Chinese. WHITRAP Shanghai expects to promote the IAWH tool to a broader audience.

Impact assessment is an approach and methodology that can promote better evidence-based decision-making in advance of planning for change at or near World Heritage properties. Impact Assessment can also give us a chance to harness sustainable development agenda and opportunities if used properly. The principles can actually be applied to the wider heritage in general, and it can be used in various different circumstances of either as a standalone process or sitting within a broader assessment process involving Environmental Impact Assessments or Strategic Environmental Assessments.

Three experts were invited: Ms Sarah Court, who currently works with ICCROM as the focal point on Impact Assessment; Ms Mizuki Murai, World Heritage Conservation Officer at the World Heritage Program Unit of IUCN; and Mr Richard Mackay, ICOMOS focal point on World Heritage Impact Assessment. The moderator was Eugene Jo, the Program Manager for the World Heritage Leadership Program here at ICCROM.

This second part illustrated “steps and processes”, held on July 30, 2020. It went through the principles and processes that people need to be aware of when conducting impact assessments. Especially when conducting an impact assessment for World Heritage, it is important to base the assessment on the Outstanding Universal Value (OUV), and all other values and attributes of the heritage place. During this session, resource persons provided different case studies to illustrate those steps in context.