A management plan of Thaba Bosiu national monument in Lesotho

Abstract

Heritage places are valuable, scarce and non-renewable. If they were not truly valuable to society or if they were infinitely available and renewable, management for their conservation would be unimportant or unnecessary. Once a decision has been reached to protect a heritage site, it is important to draw up a management plan for the site to make it easy to conserve the place and to present it to the public. This management plan of Thaba Bosiu as a national heritage resource in Lesotho is compiled as a requirement for Masters Thesis. Thaba Bosiu known as the shrine of Basotho is where Moshoeshoe I found his nation after moving there in around 1824. This document will contribute towards the effectiveness and efficiency of managing the site thus it would seek to advice and influence the management of Thaba Bosiu in line with its objective. In heritage practices like in other professions there are concepts used to describe the processes, it is therefore in chapter one where the introduction of the document as well as definition of concepts is being dealt with. Chapter two deals with the background information about Thaba Bosiu as a heritage site as well as its description. The values attributed to Thaba Bosiu were also discussed here and the statement of significance which helps to indicate why a place is important and why it should be protected. Chapter three covers legal framework that is applicable to protection of heritage in Lesotho inclusive of Thaba Bosiu heritage site. Chapter four deals with heritage management; this is where issues such as the strategic planning, site presentation, marketing, community involvement, visitor management and conservation of the place are discussed. In chapter five looking at the issues discussed in chapter four one focused on Thaba Bosiu heritage site to see how it is being affected by them. These issues are analyzed through the use of SWOT analysis where strengths, weakness, opportunities and threats facing the site are being dealt with. This approach is followed by the development of the action plan which then shows a way of how the threats can be addressed through different institutions taking into consideration the opportunities and the strengths that the site has. Copyright