Cultural Heritage conservation, applied legislation

Case study, Guatemala

Abstract

The issue of the conservation of cultural heritage has been approached from the theoretical and conceptual perspective, but rarely refers to the importance of the national and international legal framework that is related to the protection of cultural heritage for a specific country. Thus, the way patrimony is approached and preserved, varies from country to country, influenced strongly by the legislation of each country that protects it. As a contribution to the exchange of experiences at the Binational Guatemala-Colombia meeting, this paper was presented to raise awareness of the legal framework applied to cultural heritage, as well as institutions that are related to the task of preserving movable, immovable, tangible assets and intangibles in Guatemala. Reference is also made to the work of the Office of the Prosecutor for crimes against cultural heritage in Guatemala and some examples are shared to illustrate the damage, deterioration, transformation and alteration that cultural property suffer mainly due to ignorance and lack of identity of some people to its cultural heritage in the country.