Adaptive Heritage: Is This Creative Thinking or Abandoning Our Values?

Abstract

Protected areas, such as natural World Heritage sites, RAMSAR wetlands and Biosphere Reserves, are ecosystems within landscapes. Each site meets certain criteria that allow it to qualify as a heritage or protected area. Both climate change and human influence (e.g., incursion, increased tourist visitation) are altering biophysical conditions at many such sites. As a result, conditions at many sites are falling outside the criteria for their original designation. The alternatives are to change the criteria, remove protection from the site, change site boundaries such that the larger or smaller landscape meets the criteria, or manage the existing landscape in some way that reduces the threat. This paper argues for adaptive heritage, an approach that explicitly recognizes changing conditions and societal value. We discuss the need to view heritage areas as parts of a larger landscape, and to take an adaptive approach to the management of that landscape. We offer five themes of adaptive heritage: (1) treat sites as living heritage, (2) employ innovative governance, (3) embrace transparency and accountability, (4) invest in monitoring and evaluation, and (5) manage adaptively. We offer the Australian Wet Tropics as an example where aspects of adaptive heritage currently are practiced, highlighting the tools being used. This paper offers guidance supporting decisions about natural heritage in the face of climate change and non-climatic pressures. Rather than delisting or lowering standards, we argue for adaptive approaches.

Protection and Revealing of Traditional Settlements and Cultural Assets, as a Tool for Sustainable Development: The Case of Kythera Island in Greece

“…For this purpose, the economic viability of cultural assets is crucial. Contemporary good practices of cultural heritage preservation and revealing [54][55][56][57][58] indicate that the choice of the management model of monuments' revealing is not unambiguous [20]. It is necessary to examine each case based on its special features and choose the model that is feasible to be applied [59] and, in any case, does not affect the integrity and the values of the cultural asset.…”

“…It emphasizes the constructive role of cultural heritage in promoting human development, which in the long run will lead to an improvement in the sustainability of world heritage itself [19]. According to Perry and Gordon, the most effective approach to understanding and managing cultural heritage is through resilience, adaptability, and transformability [20]. Cultural heritage management is directly related to the economic viability of monuments.…”

Upscaling Local Adaptive Heritage Practices to Internationally Designated Heritage Sites

“…The management of World Heritage Sites is a hotly debated topic, whether it be the best approach and associated limitations, the benefits of either preservation or conservation, issues of authenticity, priorities of tourists and local communities, or lack of funds [1][2][3][4][5]. One particular problem which has emerged to the forefront of management debates is the limiting nature of rigid management and the need for greater dynamism within approaches and practices [3]. The call for change derives largely from greater recognition that heritage sites are not static, and so their management must be able to adapt to changes that are inevitable [6][7][8][9][10].…”

“…Striving to include these various values, and accepting that there may be alternative and unknown values, is a challenge facing adaptive heritage. The first step of introducing multi-vocal values requires innovative governance, as argued by Perry and Gordon [3], comprising indigenous or local populations as equal stakeholders with governing bodies and heritage practitioners.…”

“…A further option posited as a response to changing heritage was expanding the site's designation beyond its 'patch' of identified value to include its broader landscape of influence [3] (p. 3). This prompts consideration of cultural landscapes, a term which is both a conservation category and an academic concept (see terminological issues in [42]), connecting notions of cultural heritage with biodiversity and geo-heritage (e.g., [43]).…”