DOI

https://doi.org/10.7275/xcmv-2x72

Biographical Information // Informations biographiques

Elizabeth Brabec is a Professor of Landscape Architecture and Regional Planning at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. She serves as Director of the Center for Heritage and Society, which focuses on research and technology transfer of all aspects of heritage in today's society. She also spearheads a Cultural Landscape Initiative through the Center, and is a member of the Climate Change and Heritage Working Group for ICOMOS. Her research and outreach work focuses on cultural landscapes issues and she is a contributing member of the ISCCL.

Andrew Potts is currently serving as the coordinator of the ICOMOS Working Group on Climate Change and Cultural Heritage, which seeks to help mobilize the cultural heritage sector in support of climate change action. His is also in the process of forming an independent consultancy that will focus on policy and project management for endeavors at the intersection of climate change and cultural heritage. He was a partner in the law firm Nixon Peabody in Washington, DC, where he led the firm's Community Development Finance practice, structured and closing financing for historic preservation and other community-based development projects.

Julianne Polanco was appointed California’s State Historic Preservation Officer in July of 2015. Previous to that, she served as a Commissioner and Chair of the California State Historical Resources Commission from 2005 to 2015. Ms. Polanco was the Director of Cultural Resources for Lend Lease Americas. She was the Federal Preservation Officer and Senior Preservation Specialist at the Presidio Trust and Assistant to the Vice President for programs at the World Monuments Fund. Her professional work also includes serving as Advisor to the Chairman of California Integrated Waste Management Board and Special Assistant to the Secretary of the California Environmental Protection Agency. During her tenure at the California Department of Conservation, she held various staff positions in the Director’s Office, Division of Recycling and Division of Mines and Geology. Ms. Polanco was a district staff member for Congressman Robert T. Matsui, specializing in labor, health care, the military, veterans’ affairs and the environment.

Keywords

Cultural Landscapes, Rural Heritage, Climate Change, Rural Areas and Climate Impacts

Abstract // Résumé

As noted at the 2017 ICOMOS Assembly in Delhi, cultural heritage is both under threat from climate change, and an asset in our attempts to adapt to and mitigate its impacts. The Paris Agreement emphasizes the need for urgency about climate change; cultural heritage can play a central role in this effort. For example, iconic sites at risk from storms, coastal erosion, wildfires or permafrost thaw can alert public to the very real impacts and costs of climate change.

World Heritage Sites (WHS) around the world play a key role in alerting the public to the impacts of local climate change because they are highly visible, and are acknowledged as being important to national, regional and local heritage. As such, broad publicity about impacts and continuing losses such as the news coverage of the sea-level rise at Rapa Nui and Skara Brae and the degradation of the Cedars of Lebanon illustrate the value of both the iconic sites, their resources, and the wide media coverage they can project.

Loss and damage due to climate change also includes the impacts on large landscapes and their associated communities. The loss of cultural heritage in these landscapes runs the gamut from intangible heritage such as folk tales, to immoveable cultural heritage, to the lifeways of cultures that have developed over centuries and millennia. Placing those impacts into a broader context is the role, and the goal, of the CCHWG Working Group.

This session will address ongoing work by the Climate Change and Heritage Working Group (CCHWG) of ICOMOS that explores the nexus between climate change and heritage. Heritage interacts with climate change through a spectrum of impacts from the physical degradation of standing structures and site ecosystems, to the role that cultural heritage plays in the resilience of communities and their ontological security. Although the focus of the session will be on the impacts of climate change on rural landscapes, the discussion will cover the broad range of the work of the committee.

Attached to this abstract is the full report of the Working Group, delivered to the UNESCO World Heritage Committee (WHC) on June 3, 2019 at the 43rd Meeting of the WHC in Baku, Azerbaijan. The audience will be asked to engage with the report to identify publications and case study examples that should be incorporated into the next steps of the work of the CCHWG.

Bibliographic References // Références Bibliographiques

ICOMOS Climate Change and Heritage Working Group. 2019. The Future of Our Pasts: Engaging cultural heritage in climate action. Amherst and Paris: Center for Heritage and Society and ICOMOS. https://indd.adobe.com/view/a9a551e3-3b23-4127-99fd-a7a80d91a29e

Share

COinS
 

KC 1.1: Cultural Heritage and Climate Change: Exploring the Impacts and Issues

As noted at the 2017 ICOMOS Assembly in Delhi, cultural heritage is both under threat from climate change, and an asset in our attempts to adapt to and mitigate its impacts. The Paris Agreement emphasizes the need for urgency about climate change; cultural heritage can play a central role in this effort. For example, iconic sites at risk from storms, coastal erosion, wildfires or permafrost thaw can alert public to the very real impacts and costs of climate change.

World Heritage Sites (WHS) around the world play a key role in alerting the public to the impacts of local climate change because they are highly visible, and are acknowledged as being important to national, regional and local heritage. As such, broad publicity about impacts and continuing losses such as the news coverage of the sea-level rise at Rapa Nui and Skara Brae and the degradation of the Cedars of Lebanon illustrate the value of both the iconic sites, their resources, and the wide media coverage they can project.

Loss and damage due to climate change also includes the impacts on large landscapes and their associated communities. The loss of cultural heritage in these landscapes runs the gamut from intangible heritage such as folk tales, to immoveable cultural heritage, to the lifeways of cultures that have developed over centuries and millennia. Placing those impacts into a broader context is the role, and the goal, of the CCHWG Working Group.

This session will address ongoing work by the Climate Change and Heritage Working Group (CCHWG) of ICOMOS that explores the nexus between climate change and heritage. Heritage interacts with climate change through a spectrum of impacts from the physical degradation of standing structures and site ecosystems, to the role that cultural heritage plays in the resilience of communities and their ontological security. Although the focus of the session will be on the impacts of climate change on rural landscapes, the discussion will cover the broad range of the work of the committee.

Attached to this abstract is the full report of the Working Group, delivered to the UNESCO World Heritage Committee (WHC) on June 3, 2019 at the 43rd Meeting of the WHC in Baku, Azerbaijan. The audience will be asked to engage with the report to identify publications and case study examples that should be incorporated into the next steps of the work of the CCHWG.

 

To view the content in your browser, please download Adobe Reader or, alternately,
you may Download the file to your hard drive.

NOTE: The latest versions of Adobe Reader do not support viewing PDF files within Firefox on Mac OS and if you are using a modern (Intel) Mac, there is no official plugin for viewing PDF files within the browser window.