In brief

When a natural or monumental site is declared as a protected area such as World Cultural Site (WCS), National Historic Monument (NHM), Biosphere Reserve (BR), Natural Space (NS) etc, a very strong impact undergoes in the region. In general, this declaration involves a large public and private investment which often affects only the site itself or immediate surroundings. Often the direct impact is reduced by marginalization of more distant areas, which in many cases, present unquestionable heritage values, susceptible of being valorised and recovered in order to further generate financial resources to promote economic, social and regional development. The site protected by law acts as a powerful magnet that may favour those more remote places in terms of promoting economic and social bookmarking, if that marginal area is valorised properly. Three potential sites suffering from marginalization and a reduced impact as a consequence of their declaration or protection have been identified in regions of Mexico, Argentina and Brazil.

In order to overcome the reduced impact and promote future economic and social progress derived from such declarations, the STRAVAL main purpose is to make non-interventional studies on the conservation of these sites in LA in order to valorise the selected sites. Such studies will be performed from an architecture, environment, geo&bio-diversity, history and conservation/alteration of building materials point of view. In addition, it will be a need to complement them by the identification of existing economic potentials around these sites and a social study of the neighbouring populations. As a result of the performed studies, education and training programs aimed at college students in Higher Education Institutions will be one of the outputs of the project.