Village and Rural Heritage in the Evolution of International Conservation Documents

Considering the conservation and cultural heritage of the most significant achievements of human communities have been reflected in various international documents during the last fifty years. Examining these documents are critical given that they summarize international experiences and reflect the evolution of human knowledge and philosophies in the field of conservation in general and conservation of rural heritage in particular. As one of the human's precious assets, villages and their characteristics and elements have been constantly mentioned and discussed in the process of evolving these documents. These documents view village as an ancient phenomenon, which expresses harmony between human and nature for centuries Villages have been continually adjusted to human needs, their social and natural environment, and hence are worthy to be conserved in their entirety.
This paper relies on examining and analyzing around thirty international documents in the field of conservation. This examination focuses on the meanings and conceptions of villages and rural values. This study is specifically concentrated on documents from three international organizations: UNESCO, ICOMOS and Council of Europe, in four periods; starting from International charter for the conservation and restoration of monuments and sites (Venice Charter 1964 A.D.) to Pan-European charter of rural heritage: for a sustainable territorial development 2012 A.D. Research methods consist of document review and content analysis of the original texts, using a descriptive- analytic research strategy. The content analysis focused on comparing different definitions, values, strategies and other elements related to the principles of conservation in these documents and their evolution. The paper concluded that in these documents, the “rural heritage” is considered to be of importance as a “harmonious whole” and a “multidisciplinary base”. Furthermore, conservation approaches have shifted from restoration to integrated conservation through multidisciplinary strategies, while the challenge of integrating rural conservation and rural development persists in these documents. This study and further research in this area can result in establishing reliable principles and approaches for rural conservation.