Supporting Indigenous rangers’ management of climate-change impacts on heritage sites: developing an effective planning tool and assessing its value

Abstract

Australian rangelands are rich in Indigenous cultural heritage sites and Indigenous rangers increasingly manage them. It is well documented that climate-change adaptation planning on a local scale benefits from a stakeholder-led or bottom-up process. However, to date, few bottom-up, practical adaptation pathways exist for Indigenous Australians. This paper describes the development of a planning tool that supports Indigenous rangers’ plan for climate-change impacts on cultural heritage sites. To date, a limited number of methodologies for managing climate-change impacts on heritage sites have been developed internationally. Importantly these are not geared to a bottom-up planning process. By contrast, many generic adaptation decision-support tools exist that support bottom-up planning. These tools commonly begin with a scoping phase. The scoping phase of a tool that supports Indigenous rangers manage climate-change impacts on heritage sites is described. A validation model, consisting of central assumptions behind each element of the scoping phase, is then set out. Future testing in the field would involve assessment of the tool through confirmation or otherwise of these assumptions. The first two assumptions in the validation model are then addressed: that Indigenous rangers perceive climate-change impacts on heritage sites and that planning for them is a priority need. Previous literature has not addressed these questions in detail. Only if positive responses are gained for these foundational assumptions can future testing of the tool be justified. Results from preliminary fieldwork undertaken in northern Australia found Indigenous rangers in two out of three case studies perceive impacts on heritage sites, and regard addressing these impacts as a priority.

Optimizing historic preservation under climate change: Decision support for cultural resource adaptation planning in national parks

“…The OptiPres Model identifies optimal climate adaptation strategies based on quantitative assessment of trade-offs among alternative actions and budget scenarios, which provides an advanced methodology for longterm adaptation planning of cultural resources. In contrast to the published decision support processes for cultural resource adaptation planning (e.g., Carmichael, 2016;Daly, 2014), this study developed an optimization approach using advanced quantitative modeling that accounts for complexities of interacting factors such as dynamically changing conditions, historical value, and climate change vulnerability. The simulated annealing algorithm used in this study achieves the highest accumulated resource value of historic buildings across a long-term planning horizon, and makes the decision-making process more transparent for climate adaptation planning.…”

“…Scholars are developing processes, such as community-based approaches (Carmichael, 2016) and value-based approaches (Daly, 2014;Fatorić and Seekamp, 2017a), to help managers prioritize cultural resources given the risks from climate change impacts and likelihood of loss. Despite these laudable initial efforts, most of these studies have only focused on the early stage of the decision-making process (e.g., structuring the problem, defining values and objectives, and developing alternative actions; Fatorić and Seekamp, 2017b).…”

Innovation in Australian rangelands. A special issue from the 18th Biennial Conference of the Australian Rangeland Society

“…Indeed, concerns of rangelands people that are highlighted in many special issue papers have had little or no consideration in the policy for developing northern Australia announced in mid-2015 (AG 2015). Gaps in that policy include 'soft' infrastructure for networking and collaboration among dispersed and diverse people (Healy et al 2015); design of processes that equitably engage Indigenous people (Carmichael 2015;Jupp et al 2015; Nursey-Bray and Arabana Aboriginal Corporation 2015); regional planning for post-mining futures (Robertson and Blackwell 2015); addressing poor financial sustainability and low adaptive capacity among northern beef producers (Holmes 2015;Marshall 2015); and climate change (Carmichael 2015;Healy et al 2015).…”

A Methodology for the Assessment of Climate Change Adaptation Options for Cultural Heritage Sites

“…Cultural heritage sites (hereafter 'cultural sites'), including historic monuments, archaeological sites and cultural landscapes, play a significant role in community identity, cohesion and sense of place, and this is particularly the case for Indigenous peoples [2], for whom cultural sites often provide a foundation for the maintenance of traditional cultural practices and behaviours. Australian Indigenous perceptions of climate change impacts on cultural sites are growing [3,4]. In northern Australia, Indigenous rangers from Kakadu National Park (KNP rangers) and the Djelk Indigenous Protected Area (Djelk rangers) have perceptions of sea level rise and more extreme storm surges increasing erosion of coastal middens and floodplain-fringing middens and rock art; more intense cyclones are perceived to be impacting coastal middens; and more extreme and frequent precipitation events to be eroding inland riverine rock art and contributing to the erosion of floodplain-fringing middens and rock art [3].…”

“…Australian Indigenous perceptions of climate change impacts on cultural sites are growing [3,4]. In northern Australia, Indigenous rangers from Kakadu National Park (KNP rangers) and the Djelk Indigenous Protected Area (Djelk rangers) have perceptions of sea level rise and more extreme storm surges increasing erosion of coastal middens and floodplain-fringing middens and rock art; more intense cyclones are perceived to be impacting coastal middens; and more extreme and frequent precipitation events to be eroding inland riverine rock art and contributing to the erosion of floodplain-fringing middens and rock art [3]. In response, KNP and Djelk rangers sought to adapt sites to climate change and build site events to be eroding inland riverine rock art and contributing to the erosion of floodplain-fringing middens and rock art [3].…”