Overview
'Our heritage is literally our inheritance from the past. The challenge lies in how we can best use, adapt and conserve it.

Heritage places, artefacts and customs are important reminders of where we have come from and provide a tangible link with the attitudes and values that have helped shape our environment. They also help to provide a sense of place and community identity. Our community's heritage includes buildings, landscapes, artefacts, customs and beliefs.

Without careful management and documentation of heritage sites, the significance of an important site may not be recognised. This places heritage at risk from development and neglect.

Aboriginal heritage is central to the recognition and maintenance of Aboriginal culture, and the education of all Australians about the millennia of human history attached to this country. Cultural recognition also has a key role to play in reconciliation between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australia.

Non-Aboriginal heritage includes buildings, structures, ruins, sites, gardens as well as geological and palaeontological features.

Maritime heritage encompasses both land and underwater sites. Land sites include lighthouses, jetties and whaling stations, while underwater sites are predominantly shipwrecks

The better management of cultural landscapes is an emerging issue. Metropolitan sprawl has had a significant impact on the cultural landscapes. Increasing development along South Australia's coastline, including housing, aquaculture, marinas and boat ramps, is having a significant impact on coastal landscapes.

Geological monuments preserve geological features that are representative, rare, or even unique to science in this State, Australia or internationally. They provide illustrations of outstanding geological or geomorphological features that are of aesthetic, educational or recreational value.

Each generation has a responsibility to future generations to respect, appreciate and protect Aboriginal, built, marine and natural heritage places.