Ruderality and refugia in the ruins: heritage, alienation, and post-industrial naturecultures in Northwest Wales

After Glyn Rhonwy slate quarry in Gwynedd County, Wales closed in 1930, the process of natural succession began to blanket the hills and pits with green vegetation. The ruderal ecologies which now call the quarry home are an unruly coalescence of ‘weeds and waste’, often characterised as insignificant and unwanted. Despite growing awareness of brownfield sites as oases of biodiversity, global heritage bodies like UNESCO have not been convinced of their value. Inspired by the concept of alienation within feminist posthumanism and incorporating studies from the natural sciences, this case study critically addresses the nature/culture binary which constitutes the framework of UNESCO’s World Heritage Convention. Through a combination of landscape survey and policy analysis, I argue that the species constellations which thrive in the quarry voids of Northwest Wales are also of outstanding ecological, educational, and aesthetic value, worthy of consideration at the highest level of heritage policy and practice.