br Suggestions in the context of World Heritage The

Suggestions in the context of World Heritage The bid for the Grand Canal to be included in the World Heritage List is not the only objective, but also it\'s conservation and management. The current situation shows that the different roles of the Grand Canal determine it\'s multi-department management. The Transportation Department cannot be responsible for flood control, and the Water Resource Department cannot act on behalf of the Cultural Heritage Department. Department-based decision making for the Grand Canal suffers from a major problem that managers make decision only within their own departments. This is not to say that the decisions made by each department are motivated by opportunistic behavior, and without dialogical justification. To better conserve and manage the Grand Canal, the first thing to do is establish an effective cooperative platform that allows sufficient communication and collaboration among the different departments, something they do not have at present. As the Operational Guidelines for the Implementation of the World Heritage Convention states: “Each nominated property should have an appropriate management plan or other documented management system which should specify how the outstanding universal value of a property should be preserved, preferably through participatory means. Collaboration is encouraged.” (Operational Guidelines for the Implementation of the World Heritage Convention, 2008) Collaboration can be used effectively to resolve conflicts or advance shared visions, where stakeholders recognize the potential advantages of working together. Here, collaboration is a process of joint decision making among key stakeholders of a problem domain about the future of that domain. Freeman defines stakeholders as “any group or individual who can affect, or is affected by, the achievement of the organization\'s objectives.” All these related managerial departments can be regarded as a kind of stakeholder. There will be potential benefits when stakeholders collaborate and attempt to build a consensus on heritage conservation. Relevant stakeholders must realize these positive benefits to entice their participation. Collaboration “adds value” by building on the store of knowledge, insights, and capabilities of the stakeholders in the objective. Reaching a consensus through collaborative policy making involves a discursive process in which the participants learn about and respect each other and their differing viewpoints, reflect on their own viewpoint, work together with this combined “local knowledge” to establish a new discourse or story about the issues and the policy direction, and come to value and respond to the new policy direction. For example, the Transportation Department, Water Resource Department, and other departments responsible for the Grand Canal today should regard it CCT251545 analogue Supplier as a site of heritage, not only as a kind of waterway. When making policy, the need to conserve heritage must be taken into account. Although it was recognized in the 1994 Canal Heritage Document that an element of the heritage of a canal is it\'s evolution over the course of time, we should take care of the historical sites along the Grand Canal, whether they are historical towns or historical banks. Collaborations may be more successful if they include the stakeholders that are likely to be responsible for policy implementation. When the conservation plan of the Grand Canal is concluded, all related departments participating in policy making should carry it out, and monitor the whole process together. Secondly, special laws and guidelines should be issued. Many kinds of laws are related to the Grand Canal. The major ones include the following: the Water Law of the People\'s Republic of China (1988) that was revised in 2002; Flood Control Law of the People Republic of China (1997); the Regulations of the People\'s Republic of China Governing the Administration of Channel (1987) that was revised in 2009; and the Law of the People\'s Republic of China on the Protection of Cultural Relics (1982) that was revised in 2002. However, as mentioned earlier, all are department-based laws, which cannot satisfy the demands of World Heritage. All the properties inscribed in the World Heritage List must have adequate long-term legislative, regulatory, institutional, and/or traditional protection and management as safeguards. Pursuant to the Law of the People\'s Republic of China on the Protection of Cultural Relics, the only law concerning cultural heritage, the necessary areas of protection along the Grand Canal should be restricted, and no construction of additional projects or such operations as blasting, drilling, and digging may be conducted within the protected area. The Grand Canal remains a transport system, above all, and the fact that it continues to be a working system sets it apart from other Chinese heritage sites. Hence, heritage must remain ancillary to the need expressed by most planners to improve it as a transport route, and to the view that construction thereon is necessary to better contribute to society. The first special regulation on the protection of the Great Wall, the Regulation on the Protection of Great Wall, was promulgated in 2006. However, the Grand Canal is much different from and more difficult to protect than the Great Wall, although they are often mentioned in the same breadth. The Grand Canal is such a vast cultural site with a large land area encompassing so many different regions. It is simultaneously cultural and natural, as well as static and dynamic. It consists of sites, lines, and fields that form an immense geographical corridor, and includes monuments of the ancient, early modern, and modern periods, as well as numerous historical cultural villages, examples of traditional housing, and invaluable items of intangible cultural heritage. Thus, to be included in the World Heritage List, special laws and regulations on the Grand Canal must be issued as soon as possible.