CHARACTERISTICS FOR CULTURAL LANDSCAPE IDENTIFICATION ACCORDING TO MALAYSIAN HERITAGE

Abstract

Cultural landscapes reflect the dynamic interplay between human societies and the natural environment, embodying both tangible and intangible heritage values. While globally acknowledged, cultural landscapes remain absent from the scope of Malaysia’s National Heritage Act 2005, limiting their recognition and legal protection. This study addresses this gap by objectively investigating the characteristics that define cultural landscapes and evaluating their relevance within the Malaysian heritage context. Adopting a two-phase qualitative methodology, the study first conducted a comparative review of heritage frameworks from five selected countries, where cultural landscapes are formally recognised. This review identified six core characteristics: site, human activities, time or age cultural features, natural resources, and wildlife. These characteristics informed the second phase of the study, involving semi-structured interviews with five heritage and landscape experts in Malaysia. Thematic analysis of expert insights confirmed seven characteristics are relevance to the Malaysian context, with sense of place emerging as additional characteristic, encompassing local experience, memory, and community attachment. By proposing a framework for identifying cultural landscapes in Malaysia, this research advocates for the integration of cultural landscapes into the national heritage register as a means of safeguarding historically significant environments shaped by human-nature interaction and offers a foundation for more inclusive and sustainable approaches to heritage conservation in Malaysia. While this study demonstrates a comprehensive list to identify cultural landscape characteristics, it is limited by guiding documents to interpret the characteristics in existing legal frameworks in Malaysia for comparison with other countries. Nevertheless, present research would be beneficial in providing interpretations of cultural landscape characteristics and context in Malaysia.