Cultural Heritage Department of Taichung City

Culture represents all the aspects of living that is inseparable and closely connected to one another, developing into a set of customs and traditions. Cultural heritages are inheritable, knowledgeable, and valuable so that human beings are willing to approve, advocate, and preserve these treasures, and only changes in natural environment, societies and economy can make them fade away. Narrowly speaking, based on Cultural Heritage Preservation Act, culture could be monuments, historical architectures, relics, cultural landscapes, antiques, folk items, traditional arts and its preservationist while, in general, industrial heritages, cultural routes, underwater cultural heritages, library documents, and oral literature are included as well. Cultural heritages cover a wide range of varieties, and the notion of conservation changed and evolved as time went by. Nevertheless, the value of conservation is related to a coherent identity of a community, which is categorized as public affairs.

 The purpose of cultural heritage conservation is to protect human rights and to pursue sustainable development. Based on this framework, the affairs of cultural heritage include law systems, academic approaches, education promotion, community development, town and county planning, cultural and creative industry, cross-field value-adding, and other strategic behavior. On the othe hand,the focal point of sustainable development is not only the relationship between human beings and environment, but also the morality of following generations. To follow the world tendency, the Executive Yuan of Taiwan government held a forum and invited professionals from all different walks of life to subscribe to the declaration of Taiwan sustainable development, which conveys several important concepts related to the affairs of cultural heritage such as inter-generational fairness, social justice, eco-balance and development, protection of human rights, knowledge economy, aborigine protection, etc.