Adaptive heritage: a discussion about the best places on earth, and their future

Dr. Jim Perry

Professor, University of Minnesota

Abstract

Heritage is our legacy; our natural heritage represents our values as reflected in the places we choose to conserve “..for all humankind forever…”. That legacy, as we currently envision it, is at risk. We have approached conservation with the idea that we can set aside our best natural areas for future generations. Yet, those magnificent areas are not static. Their conservation requires a multi-value, process-driven approach, in contrast to a single value, product-driven approach. The latter (i.e., planning for a stable end-product, or the “conserve the current state” approach) has held sway since 1972, when the UNESCO World Heritage Commission was established. Natural heritage and other internationally designated protected areas exist in their current state as a product of landscape evolution. These areas do indeed have discrete properties that should influence protected area designation and conservation practice, yet those properties are not static. Influences such as human incursion and climate change alter the rate and trajectory of landscape change. Further, many such protected areas have been established based on a relatively narrow suite of stakeholder interests, often blind to or ignoring under-represented people. Join me in a discussion of “adaptive heritage”, an evolving idea that natural heritage conservation must be inclusive, must be climate sensitive and must occur at the landscape scale. This suggests that our spatial context for each natural area must include the surrounding landscape, and our criteria for designation should be adaptive, responsive to landscape and to societal change. An adaptive approach will result in loss of some of our current, highest value protected areas,but it offers the only, honest, viable and proactive way to build and protect our legacy.