From Stockholm to Sydney Opera House : towards an integrated approach to environmental planning and heritage conservation jurisprudence in New South Wales

Abstract

The central focus of this thesis is on the jurisprudence of heritage conservation, explored through a proposition that there are unifying principles of law and policy which encourage an integrated approach to environmental planning and heritage conservation globally, and in Australia and New South Wales in particular. The derivation and implications of the legal principles and processes underlying this proposition are traced from a review of the concept of heritage and heritage conservation through international, national, state and local perspectives. Through canvassing the jurisprudence, law and policy in this rapidly expanding field, the significant issues of current theory and practice of environmental planning and heritage conservation law are reviewed and the key elements of sustainability principles and an ethic of stewardship are distilled. The idea that sustainability and stewardship are central to the jurisprudence underpinning environmental law is not novel. These concepts can be, and in this thesis are, reviewed historically in relation to international law and other principles and processes which have been developed to rationalise responses to increasing internationalisation and globalisation of concerns for the continued existence of all forms of life on planet Earth. However, the contribution to the body of knowledge on the subject which this thesis seeks to make is the identification and derivation of a jurisprudentially integrated approach based on sustainability principles and a revised ethic of stewardship and its application to environmental planning and heritage conservation. The potential for implementing this approach is outlined, and opportunities for reform are illustrated through the application of the principles and ethic to a hitherto unsuccessfiil proposal to nominate the Sydney Opera House in its Harbour Setting as a World Heritage site. In so doing, this thesis reviews significant aspects of cultural heritage conservation and management in New South Wales and comments on proposed reform of the State and Federal law affecting the heritage, planning, development, resources and the environment in this State. Whilst conscious of obvious differences of focus, bodies of knowledge and assessment criteria, the thesis concludes that there are overwhelming reasons for maintaining and reinforcing binding relationships between environmental planning and heritage conservation pasts, presents and futures, and that where an integrated jurisprudence based on sustainability principles and a revised ethic of stewardship is applied consistently, better decision-making about environmental planning and heritage conservation is more likely, than not, to follow.