• LINKS
  • BELAB WEBSITE
  • SICHUAN UNIVERSITY
  • CENTER OF BUILT ENVIRONMENTS, UW
• CONTENTS
  • BACKGROUND AND CONTEXT
  • BE LAB SEQUENCE AND TIMELINE
  • PREPARATORY SEMINAR AND CHARETTE
  • SUMMER FIELD STUDIO
    • Study Tour in Sichuan and Yunnan
    • Survey and Design Work in Taoping
  • UW TAOPING DESIGN STUDIO
  • ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
  • PARTICIPANTS
  • NOTES

A major factor in Taoping’s recovery, preservation and development is its designation as a national-level heritage site and a tentative UNESCO World Heritage site. Accordingly, the UW BE Lab group visited the already-designated UNESCO World Heritage sites at Lijiang, Jiuzhaigou and Dujiangyan first, in order to gather information on how natural and cultural heritage is defined and managed in China, how it relates to the growing tourism industry, and how sites and communities respond to these levels of designation and to tourist impacts. Also, Lijiang and Jiuzhaigou, like Taoping, each present cases of the majority Han Chinese society encountering ethnic minority communities. Finally, Lijiang suffered through an earthquake in 1996, and offers lessons for Taoping in the relation historic preservation, tourist development and disaster recovery.

In Lijiang and Jiuzhaigou, the group not only experienced the sites as tourists, but also read and discussed reports on the impact of tourism and preservation policies on local communities;⁵ had extensive interviews with numerous stakeholders in each site, including management officials, residents, entrepreneurs, indigenous religious authorities, and scholars; and conducted surveys – in the case of Lijiang, surveys of touristic and regulatory impacts on the environment and activities of the old town and surrounding villages; in the case of Jiuzhaigou, a survey of the visitor center and the way in which the significance of the site was interpreted. In Dujiangyan, the group received a special tour led by staff of the municipal hydraulic authority.