What is a ‘National Trust’?
The National Trust Movement
Towards the end of the nineteenth century, organisations were beginning to be formed across the world with the aim of conserving fast-disappearing natural and cultural heritage.
The Society of the Preservation of Norwegian Ancient Monuments (Fortidsminneforeningen) was established in 1844 by artists who “discovered” Norway’s cultural heritage during academic excursions to rural districts and valleys, for example. The Trustees of Reservations in Massachusetts became the US’s first private non-profit conservation organisation in 1891 and the National Trust of England, Wales and Northern Ireland was founded in 1895.
The National Trust movement has grown to include a range of countries from Australia, Barbados and Canada through Korea, Malta and the Netherlands to Taiwan, the United States and Zimbabwe. Each National Trust is different but they share similar goals, legal constitutions and structures, and today dozens of National Trusts and like heritage conservation organisations exist throughout the world.
Beginning in the 1970s, many of these Trusts came together at three and then two year intervals to exchange best practice within the heritage conservation sector, to develop professional expertise among staff and volunteers from newly-formed National Trusts and to stimulate the formation of yet more Trusts, and to consider specific conservation issues that transcend national boundaries and that may need a collective approach to advocacy (such as tackling climate change).
As early as the 1989 meeting there was discussion of the value of having an ongoing organisation of National Trusts to take the valuable contacts made at the conferences and build on those in the intervening years. In 2003 at the 10th International Conference of National Trusts in Edinburgh the need for a more formalised global federation was agreed in the Edinburgh Declaration/La Déclaration d’Édimbourg. Two years later at the Conference in Washington, a steering committee was formed and plans were made to establish the new group.
INTO was formally launched at the 12th International Conference of National Trusts hosted by the Indian National Trust for Arts and Cultural Heritage in New Delhi in December 2007. The conference welcomed delegates from around the world, of which 48 National Trust or similar organisations signed the INTO Charter/La Charte de l’INTO.
Strengthened and inspired by this enthusiasm and support, the INTO Transitional Steering Committee established headquarters in London and is developing programmes and services for the INTO membership.
The characteristics of a ‘National Trust’
The National Trust movement, begun in Great Britain in 1895, has grown to encompass more than 40 National Trusts throughout the world. The ‘trust’ model has evolved and been adapted according to particular national circumstances but the basic hallmarks remain the same. National Trusts: