Recently, UNESCO has gradually started to recognize world geoparks ? territorial spaces with a geological heritage of international importance.
This classification presents real challenges. Development strategies must align with the recommendations advocated by various non-governmental organizations. It is also necessary to involve the local actors, both in the preparation of application forms and in the implementation of a management plan that is suitable for sustainable global development. Managing the tensions and asymmetries that exist between the different groups of actors (politicians, managers, scientists, representatives of local populations) constitutes another major issue.
It is in this context and through various case studies that this book questions the aims of the UNESCO global geoparks ? in terms of heritage inventory and conservation, the participation of local populations, the local development of a territory and its enhancement through heritage interpretation.
Part 1. Objectives, Issues and Tensions Related to the Patrimonialization of Nature1. Natural Heritage, Participatory Democracy and UNESCO: a Structure of Disillusionment?, Igor Babou.2. The Ambivalences of the Co-construction of a Mental Territory: a Case Study on Spanish UGGs, Catalina Gonzalez Tejada and Yves Girault.3. The History of the Earth as a New Form of Territorial Marketing: the Case of the Geopark of the Tremp-Montsec Basin (Spain), Fabien Van Geert.4. Patrimonialization and the Geopark Label: for Which Development Model in the South? The Case of Morocco, Ouidad Tebaa and Said Boujrouf.5. The Evolution of the Economics of Culture and its Influence on the Development of Geoparks, Francois Mairesse.Part 2. Heritage Inventory and Conservation6. Methodological Proposal for the Valorization of the Geodiversity of Rural Areas Comparable with the Zat Valley, Joan Poch, Antonio Teixell, David Gomez-Gras, Francisco Jose Martinez, Esteve Cardellach and Jose Luis Brianso.7. Interpreting Landscapes from a Socioecological Perspective: a Methodological Approach from the Zat Valley (Morocco), Marti Boada Junca, Roser Maneja Zaragoza, Jaume Marles Magre, Josep Antoni Pujantell Albos, Sonia Sanchez-Mateo and Carles Barriocanal Lozano.8. The Feeling of Archaeology and the Sense of History in the Mixteca Alta Geopark, Francisco Valdez.9. One of the First Rock Art Sites Discovered and Now Protected in Morocco: the Case of Azrou Iklane (Assa Region, Morocco), Gwenola Graff, Maxence Bailly, Abdelhadi Ewague and Martin Loyer.Part 3. Geotourism and Education10. Visualizing the Heritage of the Zat Valley Through a Virtual Museum, Elisabeth Habert and Ali Aouda.11. Web Communication of French Geoparks in Education: the Expression of Their Legitimacy, Aurelie Zwang.12. The Architectural Mediation of Geoparks Museums in China: Between Tensions and Hybridization of Cultures, Yi Du and Yves Girault.
Yves Girault is Professor at the French National Museum of Natural History, and co-editor of the International Journal of Geoheritage and Parks. From 2015 to 2018, he led the European research program H2020 RISE on Geoparks. His most recent work is on the geopolitics of museums.
Y. Girault, French National Museum of Natural History
