Our heritage encircles all those aspects of our past and present, such as religion, cultures, traditions, rights, etc. that we give importance and want to share with our future generations. This may include both our personal heritage and national or state heritage. So, we all are caretakers of heritage, whether it is family memorabilia or the wider community's inheritance from past generations that are managed by our governments on our behalf. Heritage can focus on places, artefacts, photographs, films, documents, landscapes or natural features. Heritage is much more than tangible objects. Stories, events, values and ideas, cultural and religious practices all are significant aspects of heritage.
In recent years, much attention has been given to the importance of national heritage. The National Trust of Australia is raising awareness of the value of and the risk to their heritage. So they have recently started a unique program "Our Heritage at Risk" which is comparable to its former "Endangered Places" program. The Heritage Branch of the Department for Environment and Heritage is working on what is often known as 'built heritage' and natural and aboriginal heritage'. Built heritage includes in it buildings, structures and places as well as maritime heritage, which includes shipwrecks and whaling and sailing sites.