Search Results (2)

The Zaruma-Portovelo mining district in Ecuador, and in particular, Portovelo City, is home to the oldest mining museum in the country. This museum, named Museo Mineralógico Magner Turner (MMMT in Spanish), is a centre that reflects, through its collections, the history and culture of this territory. This work aimed to evaluate the MMMT as a possible geosite by analysing its contributions to the geomining heritage of the Zaruma-Portovelo district, and thus, to enhance it and promote its collections as a geotouristic attraction. The work involved three phases: (i) describing the museum and its surroundings; (ii) a semiquantitative evaluation of the museum using the Brilha method and a geosites assessment model (GAM); and (iii) a qualitative evaluation using the Delphi and SWOT methodologies to define strategies and proposals for museum development. The results obtained by the semiquantitative evaluation of the geosite with the Brilha method reflect high scientific (330/400), educational (380/400) and touristic (365/400) appeal. The applied GAM shows the museum as a geosite with high principal and additional value, placing it in the Z₃₃ field of the global valuation matrix. In addition, the semiquantitative and qualitative evaluation made it possible to describe the importance of the museum and its collections in the development of the area. The study carried out qualified the museum as a mining site with an appropriate valuation, an example of ex-situ geological heritage conservation and a basis for geotourism development. Full article

This paper aims to discover why and how accessibility is fundamental to sustainable local development in heritage settings. We discussed the dimensions and variables of accessibility that control the development. Correspondingly, we proposed an interpretative framework for sustainable development planning and management of low urbanized spatial settings and accessibility for the Iglesiente Geo-mining heritage in Sardinia (Italy). The Iglesiente area is affected by a deep post-mining crisis that is reflected in poor socioeconomic conditions and an evident space oriented set of problems (a disorder in landscape matrix, low readability of space, scarce infrastructure and low accessibility). To revert negative trends of space-related problems, the paper proposes a theoretical model acting as an anticipatory landscape planning tool. The model copes with the context-specific problems in combination with theoretical findings. It acts at various scales through the definition of boundaries and variables of the internal and external environment, providing the territorial matrix of equity and cohesion. Furthermore, we argued the limitation and advantages of the model to its implementation capacity for the Geo-mining heritage and low-urbanized spatial settings. The empirical findings from an ongoing project about accessibility to territorial knowledge and services in the Iglesiente area, currently in progress, allow us to test and adjust the methodological framework in the next steps. Full article