India, Western Ghats

The objective of the Our Common Dignity initiative has been to contribute towards building awareness of rights issues in World Heritage and heritage management, to promote ‘good practice’ approaches to rights and their enabling conditions, and to develop and recommend relevant tools and guidelines in World Heritage, from tentative list nomination through to management.

This book includes twenty case studies of World Heritage sites from around the world that explore, from a human rights perspective, indigenous peoples’ experiences with World Heritage sites and with the processes of the World Heritage Convention.

The Western Ghats is one of the world’s most heavily populated biodiversity hotspots providing for and supporting 400 million people through water for drinking, transport, irrigation, and hydroelectric power, together with food and resources to sustain livelihoods.