Troubled Waters- Reaching Out

This project's plans for positive social impact follows on from earlier research, the interdisciplinary project 'Troubled Waters, Stormy Futures: Heritage in Times of Accelerated Climate Change'. The original research project focused on ways in which coastal communities in the UK and in the low-lying island nation Kiribati were affected by coastal flooding and inundation. We sought to more fully recognise the ways in which heritage, whether built or natural, tangible or intangible, was directly affected by current or projected climate change. National and international discussion of climate adaptation was failing to fully acknowledge the ways in which climate change was affecting heritage, sense of self and place, and contributing to people's vulnerabilities. This project respond directly to the short, medium and long-term needs identified by diverse communities and partners, and plans to address these in collaborative and empowering ways.

There will be continued community-level engagement at two sites with our community partners. In the Durgan area in Cornwall, we will continue to facilitate dialogue within and between the local community, the National Trust, and the visitors who often form deep attachments to such coastlines. To support this endeavour in an enjoyable and meaningful way, an artist will be commissioned to helps those involved express their attachments to their coastal and cultural heritage, and to reflect upon their feelings about the future. The resulting work will be made available to the general public. This approach is based on the research finding that building relationships at a community level may contribute to social cohesion, resilience, feelings of belonging and effective co-stewardship of a better understood, dynamic coastline.

A different approach will be used in Kiribati. Here, we found that despite the long term threat of displacement, communities were focused on the everyday challenges of regular coastal inundation and various environmental problem directly affecting health and wellbeing. We encountered researcher-fatigue in Kiribati, and a feeling that constant external fascination nonetheless fails to produce direct benefits at a community level. Consequently, we will work with the local environmental organisation, Kirican, to deliver and resource a program of community-led initiatives, education and outreach. By working with Pelenise Alofa, affiliated with both Kirican and the Pacific Centre for Environment and Sustainable Development at the University of the South Pacific, we will also be supporting her ongoing effort to establish a locally managed climate change adaptation network. This is in keeping with one of the general principles of long-term community resilience: that this is something which needs to happen concretely and proactively at a local level, and with the support of local or regional organisations.

Within and between communities and heritage organisations, there is frustration at the challenges of communicating climate change. A number of our partners, including the International National Trusts Organisation and the Museum of World Culture, Sweden, also want a more pivotal role for heritage organisations in the arena of climate change and adaptation, public education and advocacy. Manchester Museum will host a workshop to combine expertise, and we will create a freely available toolkit to help heritage organisations with climate change communication in future. This project respond to a clear demand for heritage concerns to be mainstreamed in international climate change negotiation, by utilising partner networks and disseminating the multi-media resources created in the original project, which amplify urgent voices from Kiribati. There will be a cultural exchange opportunity, hosting a heritage specialist from Kiribati at UK museums to enhance capacity and networks for medium and long-term heritage management including, potentially, for a post-displacement future.

1) Individuals and communities living in Kiribati will benefit directly from an opportunity to participate in an in depth-consultation with grassroots environmental organisation KiriCAN, whereby they can identify their own environmental priorities, and co-decide on suitable practical or educational strategies for addressing these. Proportional to the scale of funding, they will be able to work with KiriCAN to deliver tangible objectives, for example, by installing rain harvesting devices in their local community. Such strategies could enhance health and wellbeing, and also produce a foundation for further meaningful co-working in future.

2) Individuals and communities living in Durgan, as well as visitors to the area, will have the opportunity to participate in new or ongoing consultation about their own feelings about environmental challenges, such as coastal flooding, threat to coastal heritage, management responsibilities and planning for the future. Their views will be passed on to the landowner, the National Trust, with Dr Onciul acting as a facilitator between the residents and the National Trust. They- and others in the wider area- will have an opportunity to participate in an arts project with a commissioned artist, to celebrate their cultural heritage, and learn from each other. Visitors to the site will benefit from the opportunity to experience the resulting creative installation.

3) KiriCAN will benefit from an opportunity to apply their knowledge and networks of environmental expertise in a project driven by the local community. Their enhanced organisational capacity should produce long term benefits to both themselves, local communities in Kiribati, and strengthen the existing initiative to establish a locally managed climate change adaptation network. As co-founders of KiriCAN, Claire Anterea and Pelenise Alofa (also affiliated with the University of the South Pacific) have a long history of working to promote local resilience to climate change, and this project will further nurture them as environmental champions, playing an essential leadership role.

4) The National Trust will benefit as project partners. Locally, in Durgan, this project will support a deep local engagement to maintain and strengthen their relationship with local residents, and help to inform visitors to the area about coastal heritage and climate challenges. New ideas about effective engagement approaches could further benefit the National Trust more generally, and be used to devise new and effective ways to engage other coastal communities. This will be valued by the Trust, as one of their key objectives (as highlighted in their Shifting Shores report) is to engage local communities and the general public on coastal adaptation.

5) A range of specific heritage organisations involved in this project will value the fulfillment of their own ideas, initiatives and priorities, tied into the activities and networking in this project. For example, Manchester Museum welcome the opportunity to lead a process of creating a climate change communication toolkit for heritage organisation. The Newport Restoration Foundation value the creative audio-visual resources shared by the team for dissemination on their website, historabovewater.org, and the Museum and World Culture in Gothenburg are pleased to present the film 'Troubled Waters' in Sweden. The International National Trusts Organisation, with over seventy member organisations worldwide will find shared creative material useful for their presentations at future COPs, and will invite the team to contribute to an IPCC assessment report on the effects of climate change on coastal heritage. Many heritage organisations should benefit from the creation of a free, downloadable, climate communication toolkit, created with guidance by Climate Outreach, lead specialists on climate communication in Europe. We also provide opportunity for knowledge exchange for a heritage professional from Kiribati.