Abstract
The paper analyses the case of the Roșia Montană gold mining landscape, the community reactions, and the movement for its preservation. With a long history, in 2016, the Romanian Ministry of Culture proposed the site for the UNESCO Tentative List and in 2017 nominated it for the World Heritage List. However, in 2018, the dossier was postponed. Mass media propagated information about protests of civil society, lawsuits, and political games between the former Minister of Culture and the new government. In 2020, with added public pressure, the government requested the World Heritage Committee to accept Roșia Montană to the World Heritage List and, finally, in 2021 the property was inscribed on the List of World Heritage in Danger. The controversy has upset Romanian society and divided both the local community and the archaeological community. Nonetheless, the risks of the mining project have created a national movement, the local community having been instrumental in finding solutions for resource protection.
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Acknowledgments
This research is part of the Project “Preservation by the development of sustainable strategies for better protection of the UNESCO World Heritage Sites from Romania” – http://archaeoheritage.ro/, supported by the National Research Council (CNCS) – Executive Agency for Higher Education, Research, Development, and Innovation Funding (UEFISCDI), PN-III-P4-ID-PCE-2016-0737, and implemented by the Institute of Archaeology of the Romanian Academy, Iasi Branch, Romania.
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Musteață, S., Cozma, E. (2022). Gold Rush vs. Heritage Preservation: Case of Roșia Montană, Romania. In: Jameson, J.H., Baugher, S. (eds) Creating Participatory Dialogue in Archaeological and Cultural Heritage Interpretation: Multinational Perspectives. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-81957-6_12
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