Managing a World Heritage Site in the Face of Climate Change: A Case Study of the Wet Tropics in Northern Queensland

Abstract

World Heritage is the pinnacle of the recognition of the natural, aesthetic, and cultural value of a place on the planet. Since its inception in 1972, over 1100 sites have received World Heritage status. Many of these places are being challenged by the effects of climate change. Urgent action is needed to build the resilience and adaptive capacity of World Heritage sites in the face of climate change threats to come. The Wet Tropics of Queensland World Heritage Area (WTWHA) is one of the most effectively regulated and managed protected Areas in the world. This includes the scientific evidence upon which that regulation and management is based. However, there is growing evidence that climate change impacts are a clear and present threat to the Outstanding Universal Value (OUV) upon which the listing is based. This challenges the very concept of OUV and points to the business-as-usual regulation and management not being sufficient to deal with the threat. It also calls for quantum changes in the approaches to protecting natural and cultural heritage and the OUV in World Heritage Areas. This WTWHA case study gives insights into the journey travelled and the pathways that need to be laid out to protect our most cherished internationally recognised natural and cultural landscapes. We demonstrate the importance of evidence in support of advocacy and management action to address the clear impacts of climate change on species, ecosystems, people, and societies living in the WTWHA. The strategic and climate adaptation plans provide the framework upon which these actions take place. Community engagement in the delivery of mitigation, adaptation, and resilience policy is key to the long-term future of the WTWHA.

Adaptive Heritage: Is This Creative Thinking or Abandoning Our Values?

“…That conundrum requires us to ask "If a site loses its OUV, is it still World Heritage or heritage quality?" (6,10). In a current (July 2021) example of that dilemma, the World Heritage Commission is considering placing the Great Barrier Reef on the list of Sites in Danger (11).…”

“…In this sense, compatible means changes that retain the heritage values. The framework of continual change and therefore, limits of acceptable change within a safe operating space, poses significant challenges to our (implicit or explicit) goal of maintaining a constant value, continuing to meet the criteria for site OUV (10). Heritage management has traditionally involved setting aside large areas (as RAMSAR wetlands or Biosphere reserves or World Heritage sites) and attempting to prevent degradation by managing threats.…”

“…And that process has a momentum, a continual change through time (29), that constrains and empowers management. Heritage conservation becomes an attempt to balance tradeoffs, accommodating some magnitude of change, some deviance from original condition yet retaining some semblance of the values society holds for the site (5,10) Adaptive management (in the case at hand, adaptive heritage) is the suite of views and practices that allows us to manage that momentum. Viewing a heritage site as a SES recognizes the interaction between the biophysical and the social aspects of the broader landscape and where the site sits in that interactive space.…”

“…Pastoral heritage, as seen in many parts of North Africa, is maintained only by accepting that both climates and social conditions are continually in a state of flux (17). The current landscapes of the Australian Wet Tropics are a function of centuries of human manipulation through fire (10,39). Kimball (4) terms this "regenerative conservation", movement to a new state rather than the static view of conserving fixed conditions.…”

“…The Wet Tropics World Heritage Area (WTWHA) rainforest was listed by UNESCO for all four natural criteria in 1988 and it was recognised on the Australian National Heritage list for its cultural values in 2012 (10). The WTWHA contains rainforests that have existed on these mountain ranges for over 130 million years.…”