Rehabilitation & reuse

Managing World Heritage properties sometimes involves rehabilitation or looking at new ways to use parts of the site. Here is some guidance on the relevant requirements and considerations involved.

International context

The World Heritage Convention (Article 5 (d)) provides that each State Party shall endeavour to take the appropriate measures for the identification, protection, conservation, presentation and rehabilitation of the cultural and natural world heritage on its territory.

The World Heritage Operational Guidelines elaborate on this Article, stating that ‘All properties inscribed on the World Heritage List must have adequate long-term legislative, regulatory, institutional and/or traditional protection and management to ensure their safeguarding’ (Paragraph 97).

The Guidelines (Paragraph 98) also stress that legislation must be implemented effectively, and that the measures should ensure that the property is protected from pressures or changes that might negatively impact the Outstanding Universal Value, including the integrity and/or authenticity of the property. This is particularly relevant for restoration works or adaptive reuse.

Rehabilitation in the World Heritage context often relates to properties whose state of conservation is under examination by the World Heritage Committee. In these cases, rehabilitation measures are usually recommended and informed by monitoring missions and/or through a Desired State of Conservation process. Guidance on this process and assessment of impacts on cultural and natural properties is available on the World Heritage Centre website:

Australian context

Works relating to rehabilitation, restoration and reuse (but not continuing use) of World Heritage properties in Australia are subject to referral for approval under the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act (EPBC Act) only if they are likely to have a significant impact on the World Heritage values of the property. Otherwise these activities may simply be guided by the management plan for the property. For more information on EPBC referrals, please refer to the procedures and Significant Impact Guidelines on the Department’s EPBC webpage:

A variety of State, territory and local government legislation can also apply to works and changes of use at World Heritage properties. For these, refer to the management plan of the property and the relevant legislation websites in those jurisdictions.

The management plan for the property will generally provide detailed principles and guidance on measures to rehabilitate, restore or adaptively reuse a property or part of it, particularly if this work is foreseen during the life of the plan. The plan will usually also have policies or procedures to guide such works in the event of unexpected discoveries. 

Best practice examples

There are many examples of effective rehabilitation, restoration and reuse within natural, cultural and mixed World Heritage properties in Australia.

Rehabilitation of natural World Heritage properties is most likely to be needed when there are legacy impacts from previous uses. For example, rehabilitation might include allowing disused roads and damaged ecological communities to recovery naturally or with a degree of assistance, such as removal of weeds, restoration of canopy and other ecological structures including wildlife corridors. Depending on the specifics of each property, rehabilitation may also include the assisted reintroduction of species from that ecological community through interventions such as changes to fire regimes, replanting or release of captive-bred or rescued wildlife.

When the Wet Tropics of Queensland was first inscribed on the World Heritage List in 1988, the area was zoned under a statutory Management Plan to include ‘core’ quality areas (Zone A), areas for rehabilitation to core quality (Zone B) as well as zones for visitation nodes and existing infrastructure corridors. Through implementation of the Management Plan, the areas formerly in Zone B have been largely rehabilitated to core quality.

Remarkable human footprints from the last ice age were discovered at the Willandra Lakes World Heritage property in 2003 during a routine survey for archaeological sites. The footprints may have been exposed for some time before 2003, and some local Aboriginal people say they already knew they were there. Research has revealed that the well preserved footprints are about 20,000 years old. They are the oldest footprints ever found in Australia and the largest set of ice age footprints in the world. Three years after their discovery and intense scrutiny, the trackways were carefully covered over with a bed of sand and stabilised - the same sand that had protected the footprints from the elements for thousands of years. The tracks are so fragile and precious that they have to be protected from everybody, even researchers. Preserved, they can be re-examined in the future if the Aboriginal Elders and others agree it is necessary. A replica footprint trackway is available for visitors to see.

The Fremantle Prison is part of the Australian Convict Sites World Heritage property. It has undertaken works for reuse of its female division within the prison for visitor accommodation. Another of the 11 Australian Convict Sites in this serial property is Hyde Park Barracks in Sydney which has been preserved and restored to house a highly interactive museum, shop and function venue.

Bypassing the wasteful process of demolition is an environmental benefit of adaptive reuse. Environmental benefits, combined with energy savings and the social advantage of recycling a valued heritage place make adaptive reuse of historic buildings an essential component of sustainable development.

Adaptive reuse can involve a level of reconstruction, and it is important that this process focuses on conserving the Outstanding Universal Value of the property. 

More information

A best practice booklet entitled Adaptive Reuse – Preserving our past, building our future was published by the department in 2004

The following references are useful and should be consulted in relation to new work: