Revisiting the Incentives Policy in Safeguarding the Heritage Village: The Case of Melaka, Malaysia

Malaysia is situated geographically between two great civilisations: to its East (China) and to its West (India). It has been ruled at various periods by notable civilisations namely: the Malay Sultanate, Portuguese, Dutch, British and Japanese. As a multi-cultural, multi-ethnic and multi-religious nation, the subject of cultural heritage in Malaysia is not only diverse but complicated. The city of Melaka has played a major role in enhancing the living multicultural heritage, as depicted by its various historic villages and cultural practices of the society. It embodies the very epitome of the Malaysian identity—mixed, yet not blended. This study has resulted from the authors’ experience in conducting a survey with residents in selected heritage villages in Melaka, Malaysia. This paper discusses several of the challenges involved in safeguarding the two heritage villages, namely the Morten Village and the Chitty Village. These reflect the essence of the multi-cultural nature of Malaysian society. The case studies assess the communities’ view on the implementation of tangible and intangible heritage conservation programmes. The results of the study have found that there are constraints on the current incentives policy implementation and issues due to rapid development and its impact upon local livelihood.