Cultural Heritage and Disasters

Cultural heritage is the legacy we inherit from the past, experience in the present, and pass on to the future, revealing the achievements, aspirations, and hardships of a community. Cultural heritage can include tangible objects such as buildings, monuments, memorials, landscapes, and artefacts; intangible cultural heritage includes folklore and traditional ecological knowledge. Loss or deterioration of cultural heritage can have severe economic and psychological repercussions and threaten cultural survival and food sovereignty for Indigenous Peoples. This session will consider the role that cultural heritage plays in disaster cycles, the increasing recognition traditional practices are gaining in providing knowledge and expertise in risk reduction, such as environmental management and building techniques. It will also examine the function that memorials and commemorations have in remembering and reflecting on disaster events.