“Our
heritage celebrates our achievements and contributes to redressing past
inequities. It educates, it deepens our understanding of society and encourages
us to empathise with the experience of others. It facilitates healing and
material and symbolic restitution and it promotes new and previously neglected
research into our rich oral traditions and customs.”
This
quotation from the new National Heritage Resources Act (NHRA) encapsulates the
spirit of the South African Heritage Resources Agency, SAHRA, which has
replaced the National Monuments Council (NMC). One of the most important
elements of the new legislation is the opportunity it will provide for
communities to participate in the identification, conservation and management
of our cultural resources.
SAHRA is a
statutory organisation established under the National Heritage Resources Act,
No 25 of 1999, as the national administrative body responsible for the
protection of South Africa’s cultural heritage.
The new
Act follows the principle that heritage resources should be managed by the
levels of government closest to the community. These local and provincial
authorities will manage heritage resources as part of their planning process.
In order
to develop the skills and capacities of communities, heritage resource agencies
will hold training sessions to promote public involvement in the identification
of heritage resources, with the recording of living heritage associated with
heritage and oral history a crucial element, because much of the past is
undocumented.
We present
this information about SAHRA in order to create an awareness among the people
of our country of their right to conserve what they consider to be valuable
heritage resources, the mechanisms for doing this, and to recognise the
exciting new possibilities that the new Act creates for them.
The object
of SAHRA is to coordinate the identification and management of the national
estate. The aims are to introduce an integrated system for the
identification, assessment and management of the heritage resources and to
enable provincial and local authorities to adopt powers to protect and manage
them.
A South
African Heritage Resources Survey (SAHRS) will be established to coordinate a national
strategy for the identification of heritage resources.
Issues
relating to heritage resources and their value will be increasingly introduced
into school curricula, with universities and technikons
encouraged to increase heritage management programmes.
The
national estate encompasses heritage resources of cultural
significance for the present community and for future generations. It may
include places to which oral traditions are attached or which are associated
with living heritage; historical settlements; landscapes and natural features of
cultural significance; archaeological and palaeontological sites; graves and
burial grounds, including ancestral and royal graves and graves of traditional
leaders; graves of victims of conflict; and sites relating to the history of
slavery in South Africa.
The
national estate includes movable objects such as those recovered from the soil
or waters of South Africa; objects associated with living heritage;
ethnographic and decorative art; objects of scientific interest; and books,
documents, photographs, film material or sound recordings.
A place or
object is considered part of the national estate if it has cultural
significance because of its importance in the community, or pattern of South
Africa's history, its possession of rare aspects of South Africa's natural or
cultural heritage, its strong or special association with a particular cultural
group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons.
TYPES OF
PROTECTION
The
well-known ‘national monument’ has disappeared and other formal categories of
protection under the old National Monuments Council (NMC) have been modified. A
new category of ‘national heritage site’ exists for sites of outstanding
national importance.
In terms
of general protections, the scope of the NHRA is wider with more safeguards
against arbitrary decision-making. The linking of aspects of the national
estate to the two main environmental impact assessment systems operating in the
country makes the conservation system friendlier to development. This does not
mean that developers may now disturb heritage resources, but that they are able
to identify and deal with areas of risk more efficiently.
The system
creates a situation whereby heritage resources authorities no longer operate in
a vacuum, but from a position where it is informed by the feelings of a
community regarding their heritage resources.
FORMAL
PROTECTIONS UNDER THE NEW ACT
SAHRA and
members of the public must identify places with qualities so exceptional that
they are of special national significance to be declared national heritage
sites. These will be marked with a new badge, which is being
designed with the participation of schools.
Provincial
heritage resources authorities must identify places, which make them
significant in the context of the province, to be declared provincial
heritage sites.
Heritage
Registers
At the
time of the compilation or revision of a town or regional planning scheme or a
spatial development plan, a planning authority must compile an inventory of the
heritage resources. As an interim measure, a permit will be required to alter
or demolish any structure older than 60 years until the survey has been carried
out.
Heritage
Areas
A planning
authority must, at the time of revision of a town or regional planning scheme,
or the compilation or revision of a spatial plan, investigate the designation
of heritage areas to protect places of environmental or cultural interest.
Specific
moveable objects or collections may be formally declared as heritage objects
if SAHRA considers it necessary to control their export. It does not restrict
their sale or their ownership. A provisional list of objects has been gazetted
and includes antiquities that have been in South Africa for more than 100
years; items of importance in South African history or to significant people;
paintings and items of artistic interest that have been in the country for over
50 years. Archaeological and palaeontological material and meteorites are
exceptions, as they may not be owned, bought or sold. SAHRA will register
dealers in heritage objects and regulate trade in heritage objects.
GENERAL
PROTECTIONS
In areas
where there has not yet been a systematic survey to identify
conservation-worthy places, a permit is required to alter or demolish
any structure older than 60 years. This will apply until a survey has
been done and identified heritage resources are formally protected.
Archaeological
and palaeontological sites and materials and meteorites
are the source of our understanding of the evolution of the earth, life on
earth and the history of people. In the new legislation permits are required to
damage, destroy, alter or disturb them. People who already possess material are
required to register it. The management of heritage resources are integrated
with environmental resources and this means that before developments take place
heritage resources are assessed and, if necessary, rescued.
Wrecks
in South Africa’s maritime cultural zone are a national competence and
therefore protected by SAHRA.
Burial
grounds and graves
In addition
to the formal protection of culturally significant graves, all graves which are
older than 60 years and not in a cemetery (such as ancestral graves in rural
areas) are protected. The legislation protects the interests of communities
which have an interest in the graves: they must be consulted before any
disturbance can take place.
The graves
of victims of conflict and those associated with the liberation struggle will
be identified, cared for, protected and memorials erected in their honour.
Heritage resources
management
Anyone who
intends to undertake a development must notify the heritage resources authority
and if there is reason to believe that heritage resources will be
affected, an impact assessment report must be compiled at the developer’s cost.
Thus developers will be able to proceed without uncertainty about whether work
will have to be stopped if a heritage resource is discovered.
MANAGEMENT
TOOLS
The incentives
provided to those interested in the conservation of the national estate are more
flexible.
Fines
for unlawful destruction or other damage to heritage resources are more
extensive, and other disincentives include community service,
reconstruction of a heritage resource, or payment equivalent to the costs of
disturbing or damaging a heritage resource and the forfeiture of equipment
being used when committing the offence.
National
heritage resources assistance programme - SAHRA
will provide financial assistance in the form of a grant or a loan to community
organisations or individuals for any
project which will promote heritage resource conservation.