Kathleen Van Vlack
I am an assistant professor at Northern Arizona University. I have an interest in Native North America and the Caribbean. I am interested in cultural resource management, critical heritage studies, and social impact assessment.
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Presentation prepared for the Great Basin Anthropological Conference 2016 for the session entitled- Performing Place: Expressions of Memory and Materiality in the Great Basin and Colorado Plateau
Climate Change, Heritage Conservation, and Caribbean Small Island States
Kathleen Van Vlack1*, Richard Stoffle2
1Living Heritage Research Council, Cortez, Colorado, United States
2School of Anthropology, University of Arizona, Tucson, Arizona, United States
* Correspondence:
Kathleen Van Vlack
kvanvlack82@gmail.com
Keywords: climate change, small island developing states, heritage conservation, environmental multiplicity, traditional ecological knowledge, the Bahamas, St. Lucia.
Abstract
This essay is about the interface of climate change and heritage conservation in Small Island Developing States (SIDS) in the Caribbean. These SIDS are uniquely vulnerable to climate change impacts on their tangible and intangible cultural heritage and habitats. This essay focuses on 28 SIDS in the Caribbean basin, including 16 who are U.N. Members and 13 who are either non-UN members or associate members of regional commissions (United Nations 2021). These states share a history of plantation slavery, post-colonial struggles for new national identities, similar marine and terrestrial ecology, and exposure to common climate events. Due to their common histories and ecologies, it is argued that findings from one island can be extrapolated elsewhere. Field research and document findings argue that some of the local cultural climate and weather adaptations can be useful for future changes. Projected sea level rises and more frequent severe weather events, however, are expected to offset the potential for local communities to adapt without outside support.
This paper was prepared as a contribution to a UN sponsored Think Tank on Climate Change, composed of invited presenters including the authors of this paper. The climate change Think Tank is associated with the project “50 Years World Heritage Convention: Shared Responsibility – Conflict & Reconciliation” which celebrates the World Heritage Convention on its 50th anniversary which will occur on 16 November 2022.
The Think Tank, which occurred on March 10, 2021, was composed of scholars concerned with the shared responsibility that all world citizens have and with the implementation of climate change reconciliation and sustainability. The Think Tank purpose was to identify the conflicts that world heritage faces and analyze and reflect on conflict avoiding and conflict solving strategies and elaborate them in the context of the UN Agenda 2030. In this respect the Think Tank is designed to contribute to the goals of the World Heritage Convention.