Through the reuse project of some raw-earth ancient buildings of Cepitá, Santander, Colombia, and the preservation interventions of this little historical village and its landscape and natural environment”, we want to show some “alternative” methods of preservation of the “fragile minor heritage and landscape system”. The work was developed and carried out through participation policies and methods by the professional architects of Tierra Viva Foundation, together with the inhabitants. This complex process that involved not only tangible heritage—natural, urban and architectonical heritage—but also mainly intangible heritage—savoir faire constructive of rammed & raw-earth technologies, people and the ‘living heritage’–leads to the conclusion that preservation of “non-monumental” building heritage, and the “fragile context”, cannot be understood only in its aspect of “recovering” issues and practices. Buildings and their symbolic places are concepts reductive and partial: that’s why, nowadays, it’s required a global approach to the problem that integrates preservation and enhancement processes of the historical sites, together with the recovery of the buildings, the symbolic vision, the identity and the feeling of a “sense of belonging” to the cultural heritage and its values. Without a “social appropriation” of the heritage by the same communities that use and live that heritage, it is impossible to get the aim of sustainable local development capable of promoting other economic and social dynamics processes.