Preservation is achieved mainly through inaction rather than active management

Evidence

I would go so far as to say that, in the field of preservation, whether of natural beauty or man-made structures—granted that once the act is effected of setting them aside from spoliation—the basic policy of administration must be that of either doing nothing, or doing the least possible required to preserve. You preserve mainly by inaction. I expect to give you some examples a little later. — Freeman Tilden, Interpreting Our Heritage, 757

Categorization

• XREF: Directly relevant to the polyad’s environmental-justice and land-use threads: challenge to active-management orthodoxy (cf. debates over prescribed burns, ‘benign neglect’ in ecology, and hands-off wilderness ethics vs. restorationist intervention). — connects to: High-quality exhibits and a guest-welcome feeling curb vandalism better than barriers do — Freeman Tilden, Interpreting Our Heritage, 352; Preservation inherently requires removal from immediacy and external influence; Important cultural records survive through mundane, unintended preservation. — , The Rod and the Child: A Global History…, 1888 (+1 more)
• SEED: Angle: ‘the virtue of not doing’ as a landscape-interpretation lesson — how restraint itself can be taught as stewardship, alongside the usual ‘go forth and act’ environmental ethics.

Broader Connections

• Important cultural records survive through mundane, unintended preservation. #exemplifies (0.85) — , The Rod and the Child, 1888
• Preservation inherently requires removal from immediacy and external influence #qualifies (0.78)
• Attempts to preserve the fleeting actually destroy what they seek to keep. #expands (0.75) — Theodor W. Adorno, Minima Moralia, 141