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“Environmental Law and the Threats of
Global Climate Change to Cultural
Heritage Sites”
Stefan Gruber
Faculty of Law, University of Sydney
Cultural heritage sites
• Culture plays a significant role in the survival of all
individual parts of populations as distinguishable
elements of humankind
• Heritage sites remind people of their cultural
identities, pasts and traditions
• Reminders of the human need to adapt to the
environment
• What is considered as valuable and as worthy of
being preserved for future generations?
Early impacts of climate
change
• First human settlements in the early
stages of the Holocene interglacial,
8,000 BC
• Warm period before Little Ice Age (ca.
1550-1850)
• Impacts on viniculture and agriculture
Deterioration of permafrost
• Hastened soil erosion
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Ground starts to slump
Land slides
Coastal erosion
No protection by sea ice
Deterioration of permafrost 2
• Hastened decay of organic material
– No protection by ice
– BUT: the melting of ice sheets sometimes reveals
archaeological treasures
– Sites are exposed to humidity
• Douglas Mawson’s hut at Cape Denison in the
Antarctic Commonwealth Bay, 1911 and 1914
• Scott’s hut, Cape Evans, Antarctica; 1 kilometre away
from the Barne Glacier and its fifty metres high
terminal wall of ice
Desertification
• UNCCD, Art. 1(a): “land degradation in
arid, semi-arid and dry sub-humid areas
resulting from various factors, including
climatic variations and human activities”
• Removal of a protective cover from fertile
soil in dry zones
• Sand dunes stabilised by vegetation
• Increasing number of windstorms
• Irreversible process
Desertification 2
• Sand encroachments
• Grinding effects of sandstorms
• Sites are deserted by local population
Ocean rise and floods
• 85 % of Earth’s freshwater is frozen at the
polar caps
• 70% of the world population live in coastal
areas
• Coastal erosion
• Floods in river deltas
• Threat to groundwater, e.g. island
communities in Southern Pacific region
• Increasing number of heavy storms
Cultural landscapes
• Often very fragile ecosystems
• Loss of local population
– secure ecological stability
– prevent soil erosion
• Loss of cultural landscapes
– Landscapes shaped by humans
– Regional architecture
– Ecosystems
• Loss of intangible heritage
UNFCCC
• Prevention or adaptation?
• Or both?
• Mitigation and adaptation are no
antipodes, but closely interlinked
World Heritage Convention
• The duty to identify a nation’s heritage and
to maintain the integrity of its outstanding
universal value
• World Heritage and climate change
• “[The State Party] will do all it can to this
end, to the utmost of its own resources ...”
• The Precautionary Principle
• List of World Heritage in Danger
– Monitoring through IUCN and ICOMOS
– States Parties report on a regular basis
Cultural heritage in arctic
and alpine regions
• Protocol on Environmental Protection
to the Antarctic Treaty (Annex V)
• Increased monitoring
• Salvage operations
Combating desertification
• UNCCD
• More guidance of local communities
• Threats to dry areas
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Short-term economic aims
Unsustainable land use
Unsustainable water use
Development pressure
Combating desertification 2
• Efficient regulation only through a
combined application of water law,
land use law and construction law
• Specific actions regarding heritage
sites
– Buffer zones
– Existing sand encroachment must be
removed continuously
– Increased monitoring of remote sites
Preventive measures against
flooding
• Embankments
• Compulsory protection plans
– UNESCO: Overtopping of Thames barrier
would cause damage of GBP 30 billion
and flood three World Heritage Sites
– Hurricane Katrina caused damage of over
USD 80 billion. The implementation of
the protection plan would have cost USD
14 billion
Protecting rural cultural
landscapes
• Land use regulations
• prevention of further soil degradation
• protection of water supplies
• sustainable access to resources
• minimising development pressure
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Establishment of buffer zones
Adaptation of agriculture to climate change
Support for rural communities
Protection of minorities
Prevention of further urbanisation
Conclusion
• Law must be used in a holistic way to
create a comprehensive system of legal
instruments and enforcement
mechanisms
• Possible precautionary measures to
potential threats must be examined as
early as possible
• Cultural heritage is a non-renewable
resource!