1 INTRODUCTION Living historic environment including built heritage is often exposed to the risk of destruction from natural hazards and/or manmade hazards: war, negligence, lack of awareness and lack of appropriate regulations. Kosovo’s rich cultural heritage in 1999 endured a terrible war that resulted with a serious damage tobuilt heritage, loss of lives and disruption of social and economic structures. Since 1999 built heritage in Kosovo is faced with various opportunities, challenges and obstacles that contributed in its degradation and in introductionof new principles and conservation concepts. The obstacles – nowadays very familiar to the region of Kosovo, include: half-century monist government, the last war, no continuity and destruction of architectural heritage funds during the past war years, etc.5. Consequently, Kosovo continues to deal with destroyed and devastated historic buildings. Besides unfortunate situation of the cultural heritage in Kosovo, the system and mechanisms of evaluation, protection and presentation are yet to be defined. Even with the presence of the international community, the institutional infrastructure continues to be unsatisfying in terms of the working conditions and the technology that it possesses. In an attempt to summarize the drawbacks of cultural heritage it is worth emphasizing that all the actions taken in this field in Kosovo are still facing a non-completed low- administrative infrastructure and unsatisfying funds from political, professional and budget area. Considering current state of cultural heritage, all mentioned issues affect in some way, in its sustainability. This research will try to introduce and define the most sustain key issues, that would be most important ones towards improving paths of cultural building heritage as an important factor in sustainable development of Kosovo in general. 2 OBJECTIVES The main aim of this research is focused in the integration and evaluation of main conservation practices applied in Kosovo lately, in order to create clear decisions about the preservation of built heritage, considering the cultural diversity and integration of the community in the overall process.The cross-sectional study is based on the researched data found at relevant heritage institutions, nongovernmental organizations and in selected construction enterprises. Paper presented at the 2nd International Conference on Protection of Historical Constructions - PROHITECH, 7-9 MAY 2014 Challenges and Opportunities toward Definition of Appropriate Practices in Sustainable Conservation of Cultural Heritage in Kosovo Shqipe NIXHA 1 ,Violeta NUSHI 1 , Nora ARAPI 2 1 University of Pristina “Hasan Pristina”, St. Mother Teresa, n.n. 10000 Pristina, Kosovo 2 Ministry of Culture, Youth and Sport, St. Mother Teresa, n.n. 10000 Pristina, Kosovo shnixha@gmail.com , violeta.nushi@uni-pr.edu , nora.arapi@gmail.com ABSTRACT:The built heritage is often exposed to the risk of destruction from manmade hazards – war, negligence, lack of awareness andappropriate regulations. Kosovo’s rich cultural heritageendured a terrible war that resulted with serious damage.This heritage nowadays is faced with challenges and opportunities. The main aim of this research is focused in integration and evaluation of main conservation practices applied in three heritage buildings: (1) The Great Hammam in Pristina; (2) ex. Hotel “Union” in Pristina; and(3) Hydro Power Plant in Prizren; in order to introduce usage of principles and conservation concepts towards strengthening social role in the process of rehabilitation.The outcome of this research, through the detailed study of the problems, illustrated with practical examples, is to create a path that will serve in establishment of Sustainable Conservation Principles for built heritage located on the territory of Kosovo, in accordance with international Charters, the attributes of the built heritage and existing professional capacities.