Governance of Heritage Conservation: Overview on Malaysian Practice

Heritage conservation refers to the process of preserving, repairing, restoring and maintaining sites and buildings that have significant heritage values. In Malaysia, currently, heritage sites and buildings are currently facing great threat from new urban development particularly due to the need to accommodate the growth of population, infrastructure development as well as economic growth. The scarce of land supply in the heart of Kuala Lumpur city for instance has exposed this modern heritage city to severe from commercialisation pressure because of the land price. Whether to preserve and conserve is still in great debate among the policymakers, stakeholders and academicians. The importance of conservation comprised a significant impact on the three pillars of sustainability; social, economy and environmental. This research examines the gap in related documents such as national development plans of Eleventh Malaysia Plan (EMP), National Physical Plan (NPP), National Urbanization Policy (NUP) and specific guiding document / policy on the heritage conservation such as National Heritage Act 2005 (NHA), ICOMOS Charters and relating current by-laws that facilitates the conservation activities in Malaysia. Hence, the focus of this paper is to review and identify the gap of present governance and legislations to protect such heritage values from being demolished and destroyed. Finally, the paper identifies several best practice strategies towards better governance of heritage conservation.