World Heritage Cultural Landscapes: conservation and sustainability challenges

From 1 to 10 September 2016, thousands of leaders and decision-makers from government, civil society, indigenous peoples, business and academia will gather together in Honolulu (Hawaii) to share ideas on how to improve the ways we manage the natural environment for human, social and economic development. Held every four years, the IUCN World Conservation Congress (WCC) focuses on joint progress in ways to protect biodiversity, a crucial factor in addressing some of our greatest challenges today, such as tackling climate change and achieving food security.

Older adults' quality of life - exploring the role of the built environment and social cohesion in community-dwelling seniors on low income

The built environment and social cohesion are increasingly recognized as being associated with older adults' quality of life (QoL). However, limited research in this area still exists and the relationship has remained unexplored in the area of Metro Vancouver, Canada. This study examined the association between the built environment and social cohesion with QoL of 160 community-dwelling older adults (aged ≥ 65 years) on low income from Metro Vancouver. Cross-sectional data acquired from the Walk the Talk (WTT) study were used. Health-related QoL (HRQoL) and capability wellbeing were assessed using the EQ-5D-5L and the ICECAP-O, respectively. Measures of the environment comprised the NEWS-A (perceived built environment measure), the Street Smart Walk Score (objective built environment measure), and the SC-5PT (a measure of social cohesion). The primary analysis consists of Tobit regression models to explore the associations between environmental features and HRQoL as well as capability wellbeing. Key findings indicate that after adjusting for covariates, older adults' capability wellbeing was associated with street connectivity and social cohesion, while no statistically significant associations were found between environmental factors and HRQoL. Our results should be considered as hypothesis-generating and need confirmation in a larger longitudinal study.

Sydney Opera House on eBay: enabling technologies, community and social value

Digital forms of participation with significant places, such the Sydney Opera House, are increasing. What can they reveal about communities of this World Heritage site? How do contingent forms of participation evidence the interconnectedness of tangible, intangible and digital forms of cultural heritage? Critical heritage scholars assert that social value is a central issue in cultural heritage. In an Australian context, ‘social value’ is used to denote the significance that communities have for places of cultural heritage. Unlike other forms of place-significance such as scientific, historic or aesthetic values, the assessment of social value is complex and difficult to evidence. This theoretical paper explores participation in place through two digital instances, buying a real tile on eBay and a virtual one on Own Our House a crowdfunding venture by the Opera House Trust. The paper seeks to reveal the way in which such online artefacts demonstrate how cultural significance is entangled in the everyday and the individual experience. It argues that these seemingly insignificant moments of participation are implicated in the personal and the emotional by connecting work within critical heritage studies with the work of media scholar Jose van Dijck. Then the paper reflects on the way in which these everyday forms of participation through digital technologies disrupts and complicates established ideas about communities upon which local, state, national and international heritage systems are based.