The UK’s National Trust – Europe’s biggest conservation charity - is twinning some of its properties with cultural heritage sites in Africa and the Middle East. Dave Simpson explains why:
A recent article in The Art Newspaper highlighted new research from Climate X, which revealed the fifty UNESCO World Heritage sites most under threat from climate change - prompting calls for the culture sector to do more to raise awareness and take action on the issue.
Supported by the Cultural Protection Fund, Withstanding Change: Heritage Amongst Climate Uncertainty is a project from the International National Trusts Organisation (INTO), which has twinned the National Trust in the UK with cultural heritage sites in Egypt, Ethiopia, Zanzibar, Uganda and Jordan. In a process of mutual learning and exchange, the international partners are working to restore sites threatened by climate change.
Despite producing only 2-3 per cent of global emissions, the continent of Africa has been consistently described as the region most vulnerable to climate change. INTO is seeing the impact of climate-related events on Africa’s cultural heritage sites, widening the gaps between conservation needs and the resources available to service them.
In the Middle East, which is already reeling from the brutal effects of multiple protracted wars, research bodies such as the Climate Change and (in)Security Project are increasingly drawing attention to the role of climate change as a catalyst for resource competition and driver of social unrest.
The cultural heritage landscape and those who protect it are perhaps too often cast as being purely subject to the downstream effects of these significant challenges, which are there for all to see. What the work of ‘Withstanding Change’ is proving is that cultural heritage has power. Conversations around the protection of culture can provide an access point for discussions around the changing climate - just as discussions about the changing climate can lead to further exchanges about the protection of culture.
For young people in particular, culture can provide a more tangible and relevant framework for discussions around climate change than the perhaps more widespread – and of course important – economic lens of property damage, reduced crop yields, and lost livelihoods.
In Jordan, the Petra National Trust’s established expertise in youth engagement and education has seen them roll out one of the first state-recognised curricula combining themes of climate change and heritage in the Middle East region. They are sharing their findings with National Trust peers in the United Kingdom, whilst also fostering opportunities for international youth dialogue to better contemplate a climate phenomenon that neither knows nor respects international boundaries.
International collaboration is of course at the heart of what INTO is all about – something that has made our work on ‘Withstanding Change’ a natural fit with the mission of the British Council managed Cultural Protection Fund. The similarities between North Wales and Zanzibar may not seem immediately apparent, but for the people working hard to protect their heritage from the increasingly damaging effects of coastal erosion, they are all too clear – as the video produced by the programme on the ‘twinning’ between the two sites shows.
The strength of these connections between the Middle East, Africa, and the UK became evident from the very earliest stages of the project. A recent article from the Autumn 2024 edition of the National Trust Magazine captures this eloquently:
The ‘Withstanding Change’ programme officially runs until early next year, but for Heather and Omniya (custodians of the National Trust’s Blickling Estate and Beyt al Razzaz respectively) it’s been the start of an enduring friendship.
"The project has formed a community linked by people who care about heritage far beyond our borders,’ says Heather. "Our relationships will outlast the programme and extend well into the future."
"The twinning programme is bringing hope," adds Omniya. "The entrance portal in the courtyard at Bayt al-Razzaz has an inscription where, after his name, the Sultan refers to the house as 'this blessed place'. I feel he’s speaking to me and I have a responsibility to care for this house, where so many people have lived happy lives. Climate change will be a challenge, but we will overcome it. It’s what we have to do.”