Ethics, conservation and climate change

While the projected impacts of climate change on cultural heritage are beginning to be considered with increased urgency by cultural heritage professionals, government agencies and funding bodies are still failing to grasp the larger ramifications for society in regard to how this relates to social equity and local and national community identities. Funding allocations for climate change by national and international authorities have generally overlooked cultural heritage. As a result there is a lack of 'hard' data on existing impacts nor is there investment in the development of feasible mitigation measures. Why does this matter? Has society, and in particular government authorities and funding bodies, failed to grasp the intimate connection between cultural heritage and sustainable communities? While attention is focussed elsewhere, what do local communities stand to lose? And why is this important? If the impact of climate change on cultural heritage continues to be poorly understood, insufficiently audited and mitigation strategies underdeveloped, it is likely that responses to long- and short-term climate-induced impacts will be ad hoc. Who then will make decisions about what is significant and what should be saved, and what are the potential risks for cultural heritage and communities? The authors explore these questions through case studies from Central Asia, the Arctic and Australia