Cultural Heritage Act (Norway)

Cultural Heritage Act (Lov om kulturminner)
Territorial extent	Norway
Date passed	June 9, 1978
Date commenced	February 15, 1979

The Cultural Heritage Act (Norwegian: Lov om kulturminner or kulturminneloven) of 1978 is a Norwegian law that protects heritage sites and cultural environments. The structures and spaces that it covers are deemed to have cultural or architectural value. The act includes heritage such as structures and sites, sometimes the area around a monument, protected structures, boats, shipwrecks, and cultural environments. The act describes what automatically enjoys cultural heritage protection and what may be protected under an individual decision.

In line with Section 1 of the Cultural Heritage Act, the purpose of the law is to protect "cultural heritage and cultural environments in their uniqueness and variety ... both as part of our cultural heritage and identity and as part of the overall environment and resource management. It is a national responsibility to safeguard these resources as research source material and as an enduring basis for present and future generations' experience, awareness, enjoyment. and activities. When another law contains decisions that affect cultural heritage, emphasis shall be placed on the intention of this act."

In line with Section 2 of the act, cultural heritage is "all traces of human activity in our physical environment, including places associated with historical events, beliefs, and traditions. Cultural environments refer to areas where cultural heritage is part of a larger entity or context. The rules on cultural heritage and cultural environments shall apply insofar as they are applicable to botanical, zoological, or geological features that are associated with cultural and historical values." Important natural assets can add weight to the assessment of conservation value.

Originally the concern lay in protecting individual cultural heritage as a source of knowledge about the Norway's oldest history. Gradually, the focus expanded to include protection of larger collections of artifacts and the overall physical environment. Both academic disciplines and politicians recognized the importance of the cultural heritage context and its association with the landscape, as a result of which today the Cultural Heritage Act provides for protecting larger areas where cultural heritage is part of a larger entity or context (Section 20).

The law prohibits modification of automatically protected cultural heritage monuments and sites. This entails a prohibition on activities that may damage, destroy, dig up, move, change, conceal, or otherwise inappropriately change the appearance of such heritage or create a danger that this could happen (Section 3). Permission for any such activity must be obtained from the Norwegian Directorate for Cultural Heritage or county municipality (mainly through the Planning and Building Act).

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