The Burhanpur cultural landscape helps us understand our origins and provides significant
information on the management of natural resources in the present. The natural values of the
Burhanpur traditional landscape will be continued if the existing sustainable landuse is supported. The
heritage conservation approach in Burhanpur is monument-centric and must be integrated into a broader
perspective. Individual features in the landscape should never be viewed in isolation, but rather in
relationship to the landscape as a whole. The cultural landscape is a tested model of sustainability and
requires holistic understanding. Ironically, the stakeholders are attempting to implement many
sustainable projects and a sustainable regeneration plan on a limited and compartmentalized knowledge
base. Because the heritage value stands under-recognized and the area is not nominated as a cultural
landscape, concerned administrative authorities tend to focus their energies on built heritage-centric
secondary issues, rather than the issues concerning the inclusive cultural landscape. Re-nominating the
heritage to broaden the recognition of these landscape values could curb the threats to a sustainable
Burhanpur. This effort will support nurturing and harvesting the natural values of this landscape. The
response of a cultural group to the natural setting and its resource base would fit the Burhanpur
landscape with the nomenclature of an “organically-evolved cultural landscape” in the national heritage
list. Integrating the natural and cultural heritage of the Burhanpur landscape can be a model for
sustainable regeneration in many other landscapes of the Indian subcontinent, whose outdated legislative
framework and conservation practices preserve built and natural components in isolation.