Abstract
The preservation and nurturance of national heritage products, which are inherent to particular localities, are very significant for the economic, social vitality and sustainable development of a country. National handicrafts are a means of maintaining national identity, originality, and distinction in a constantly changing world. For a long time Lithuania was an agrarian country, so its cultural heritage and handicrafts are closely related to the rural environment, culture, traditions, and materials. Nowadays this heritage is a very important source of alternative employment opportunities. In 2007 Lithuania enacted the Law of National Heritage Products; in 2008 and 2011 Programmes for the Protection of National Heritage Products, their Market and Development of Handicrafts were approved. The goal was to provide governmental support to create favourable conditions for the creation, realisation and popularisation of national heritage products. The aim of this paper is to evaluate the traditional handicrafts protection situation in Lithuania in a Programme implementation framework and to submit proposals for better implementation. The analysis shows that not all Programme goals were achieved: those for which municipalities were responsible were implemented better than those implemented by governmental institutions. A presumption could be made that the top-down approach is only partially suitable for Programme implementation. The partners from the ‘bottom’ (associations, local activity groups) should be involved in the implementation of the Programme to reach better results.
Pareigienė, L.; Ribašauskienė, E. 2018. Protection of traditional handicrafts: the Lithuanian case. Proceedings of Annual 24th International Scientific Conference “Research for Rural Development 2018”, Volume 2, p. 238–244. Online ISSN 2255-923X, ISSN 1691-4031, DOI: 10.22616/rrd.24.2018.078; [AGRIS; CAB ABSTRACTS; CABI full text; EBSCO Academic Search Complete; Web of Science Clarivate Analytics; Thomson Reuters Elsevier SCOPUS].