Heritage adapts: empowering communities to safeguard their cultural and natural heritage against climate change

Recent years have seen the development of many tools and methodologies to assess risk and respond to the impacts of climate change at heritage places. As an emerging threat, the heritage sector is largely unprepared to deal with these challenges. The best of these tools engages with local communities to assess values, impacts and responses; however, they remain fundamentally expert-driven applied frameworks dependent on outside guidance to produce static assessments of climate risk at a point-in-time. This top top-down approach is a barrier to inclusive climate action and perpetuates existing unjust and inequitable modes of partnership and engagement. While these assessments can be hugely valuable for site management, a lack of climate literacy often limits their utility as decision support tools. This dynamic is especially common in lower- and middle middle-income countries and amongst isolated communities which lack the professional capacities, time and knowledge to engage in meaningful climate action. The Preserving Legacies project was established in 2023 to respond to this challenges challenge and empower local communities to respond to the impacts of climate change at their heritage places. Over a period of three years, the project works with custodians from over 30 heritage places around the world to provide training in climate literacy, values-based and locally -led risk assessment, adaptation actions and story-telling, providing a platform for communication amongst some of the most vulnerable and under-represented communities. This chapter presents the background, aims and objectives and current results from this project with a particular focus on inclusivity, equity and amplifying marginalised voices, valorising local and indigenous knowledge as key elements for climate action.