Importance of cultural heritage

Culture is a progress of people. It is taken as a symbol of creation and development. It indicates creation of human civilization. Importance of cultural heritage is wide. Culture occupies an important position in any society, community and nation. Importance of cultural heritage in brief is given below:

• Culture reflects our social tradition, customs, values and respect, it includes specialties of different ethnic groups, languages, religion and rituals.
• Religion and cultural heritages include different types of social activities festivals, ceremonies, religious place, religious ceremony etc. that carry social values.
• We meet our relatives and friends while celebrating cultural ceremonies and festivals. It renews and strengthens our relationship. We become happy by getting blessing from our elders and respectable. This greatly helps to maintain our social customs and traditions that continue in future too.
• If we continue our cultural values and activities without deteriorating them it helps to preserve our culture. It develops a culture of social unity, respect and cooperation to each other
• Development of religion and culture helps to develop knowledge and skills related to it. It contributes to the development of education, skills and arts in the country. It is necessary to study and explore the activities related to our culture to clear originality and values of our culture.
• Each country had its own religion and cultural heritage. It includes its originality, specialty, tradition and other valuable aspects. These are the most valuable assets of the country.

Interrelationship between people and cultural heritage

Cultural heritage includes traditional values, rituals, religion, religious books, folk songs, inscription etc. people have created cultural heritage spending their knowledge, money and time. Aspects of the cultural heritages are relates to various aspects of human beings such as knowledge, politics and social development. As people’s life styles differ from geo-physical regions there is a difference in cultural heritage too. Thus, culture influences life styles and social activities of people.

Our culture also includes different types of social values and respects. If we follow our cultural values and practice them properly, it helps us to run our life easily. It maintains discipline in society and provides a favorable situation to other social activities properly. If we follow this system people will cooperate us to perform different activities. It helps to be unites to carry out developmental work in the country.

Cultural heritages are valuable asset of the country. They reflect national aspiration and feeling and tradition. It is an important outcome of the past that reflects our civilization of our ancestors. Our culture provides us guidelines for future that also helps to make our life styles. Cultural values, arts, tradition, dresses and food influence our life-styles better. Because of this we have own cultural practices and values that are related to our life styles. They introduce us to the rest of the world.

Concept of Religious and Cultural Heritages

Culture is our life-related practice. It is in practice from ancient period as a human culture. People’s belief on god and goddess is religious culture. Culture is a broad term. It is also interrelated to the various human development activities. Based on the past experiences people develop their own belief, value system, attitude, opinion etc. They indicate steps and process of human civilization. Culture influences people of each locality. This makes difference in their behavior, thinking, opinion and social customs. On the basis of cultural influence, people develop their own life-system. It means human civilization is also a part of culture. Culture includes a number of things like traditional practices, religious activities, festivals, folk songs, dresses, dances, cultural activities, means of entertainment etc.

Since ancient time, our ancestor has preserved our religion and cultural activities that is called religion and cultural heritage. Knowledge, spiritual experience, aspiration, values and other culture related things develop our culture. So culture reflects special aspects and phenomena of our society. Gradual development of cultural aspects id the basis of cultural development.

Religion is a social feeling and belief. In other words it can be perceived as the basis of people’s thought, respect, value and belief. Since creation of human beings, it has been practicing in different ways. There is a gradual improvement in it. Religion is a spiritual asset, it motivates people to take a good path in their life. Good work is names as religion. Its opposite activity is evil, which is to make people unhappy. It is also called sad. People have been making religion, rules and regulation since ancient time. It has contributed to make various religious books. We should view values and respects propounded by religious books in the present context. Culture of one society differs from another. We should analyze our culture properly. If there are any unpractical things in our culture we can modify without deteriorating its inherent values. We should try to make it simple and practicable. Social values and respects are legs and hands and belief is the heart of our culture. Culture indicates social specialty. Because of it culture is related to human life system. This system has developed a cultural environment.

Cultural Heritage Tourism

The National Trust defines cultural heritage tourism as traveling to experience the places, artifacts and activities that authentically represent the stories and people of the past and present. It includes cultural, historic and natural resources.

The Heritage Tourism Program provides assistance ranging from how to cultural heritage tourism publications to consulting services tailored to meet the needs of individual clients. The National Trust for Historic Preservation's Heritage tourism Program provides fee-for-service assistance in heritage tourism development, management, and marketing. The staff also works at the national level to track national trends, provides how-to training tools and programs, and advocates for increased national support for heritage tourism.

Methods of cultural heritage preservation

We know that our cultural heritage is the most valuable thing. It is deteriorating due to several reasons. We should contribute to the conservation of our cultural heritage. It is necessary to develop conservation motive en all people. Such feeling helps to preserve our culture. Our efforts are greatly necessary to preserve cultural heritage. Some of the methods of cultural heritage preservation are given below:

• Awareness
• Publicity
• Educational institutions
• Participation
• Practicability and development
• tolerance
• Institutionalization
  
• Supervision and control
• Use of science and technology
• Educational and cultural program
• Law
• Cooperation
  

Depletion of cultural heritage and its effects

There are a number of cultural and social values in our society. It is our responsibility to understand our culture and to practice them properly. People of various ethnic groups are in different parts of our country. They have their own culture and social values. These different types of cultural values constitute our culture. Thus, our culture reflects different types of cultural values of our society. We should find the elements that deteriorate culture. Then we should adopt appropriate methods for the preservation of our cultural heritage.

• Respect:- We should respect to the creator of our culture. There should be a mechanism to motivate them to involve in this field. We should obey our parents and elders. We should follow the guidance given by them. WE should respect them. These are our cultural values and respects. This practice helps us to be discipline and we can do good work in our society. Thus, we should not forget our most valuable cultural and social values.
• Religious tradition Each country has its own religion and cultural values. People follow this for peace and happiness. We go to temple and worship them for our mental peace. We offer things to others. We pray our god and goddess. We celebrate different festivals, ceremonies, social customs and religious functions. These activities contain our religious and social values. Young generations should understand the values of our culture and they should practice it properly. If we do not understand it properly we cannot preserve our cultural heritage. We should respect the culture of other countries and also we should celebrate and preserve our culture.
  
• Social customs We respect our guests. We offer them food first and then we eat. We also provide them room to stay there at night. It is our social customs to respect our guests. It is our traditional and social value. Now, there are some changes in our traditional social systems. We can help travelers and our guests providing facility of lodge and hotel in low cost. It would be better to develop this service as an industry for respecting our guests. This contributes to the preservation of our cultural heritage and to raising income of country.
  

Cultural Heritage Management

Cultural Heritage Management is the vocation and practice of managing cultural heritage. It is a branch of cultural resources management, although it also draws on the practices of conservation, restoration, archaeology, history and architecture. While the term cultural heritage is generally used in Europe, in the USA the term cultural resources is in more general use specifically referring to cultural heritage resources. Cultural Heritage Management has traditionally been concerned with the identification, interpretation, maintenance, and preservation of significant cultural sites and physical heritage assets, although intangible aspects of heritage, such as traditional skills, cultures and languages are also considered. The subject typically receives most attention, and resources, in the face of threat, where the focus is often upon rescue or salvage archaeology. Possible threats include urban development, large-scale agriculture, mining activity, looting, erosion or unsustainable visitor numbers. The public face of Cultural Heritage Management, and a significant source of income to support continued management of heritage, is the interpretation and presentation to the public, where it is an important aspect of tourism. Communicating with government and the public is therefore a key competence.