Re-directing conservation risks to disaster risks in conserving world heritage sites in Malaysia

Abstract

Although a host of researches have fished-out attributes collectively defining Conservation Risks (CR’s) at World Heritage Sites (WHS’s) in Malaysia, these attributes are reported to threatening WHS’s thereby posing as potential Disaster Risks (DR’s) to the WHS’s. These fished-out CR attributes however somewhat fall within the confines of ‘hazards’ (as conceived by some researches and policy documents on DR’s) leaving out the other two variables (vulnerability and capacity) which alongside hazards, collectively define DR’s. This study as such, intends to explore the studies on CR in Malaysia with a view to aligning these studies to a DR approach in conserving WHS’s in Malaysia. Literature is sourced and reviewed by means of document analysis. Interpreted inferences drawn will be used presenting results. Findings reveal that attributes CR while bearing semblance to attributes of DR however predominantly qualify to being hazards both originating from nature and human induced. It is recommended that adopting the full concept of DR to WHS involves exploring the other two variables (vulnerability and capacity) which alongside DR attributes qualified to being hazards will collectively define DR at WHS’s both in Malaysia and beyond.