Cultural Emergencies: Responding to climate-change related disasters

ELEONORE DE MERODE
Prince Claus Fund for Culture and Development, The Netherlands

The Cultural Emergency Response (CER) programme of the Prince Claus Fund for Culture and Development provides prompt and effective emergency relief for cultural heritage damaged or destroyed by man-made or natural disasters. The Prince Claus Fund’s guiding principle is that culture is a basic human need. Loss of cultural heritage is a fundamental loss that is insufficiently acknowledged, and its rescuing can bring hope and consolation to communities living in critical situations. Cultural emergency relief should therefore be an integral part of humanitarian aid.

By providing financial support within six months of a disaster, CER aims to stabilise the situation, prevent further damage and implement basic repairs in order to create the conditions to enable further restoration. The Fund relies on the expertise of its worldwide network to identify cultural emergencies. It collaborates directly with local partners in the affected-communities to implement CER actions. If required, additional funding is sought in co-operation with other partners.

CER was launched in 2003 in reaction to the looting of the National Museum of Baghdad. It has since supported and implemented over 30 cultural emergency relief actions throughout the world. A significant proportion of CER actions have been carried out in reaction to the acute and devastating impact of climate change on heritage – torrential rainfall and increased frequency of flooding – namely in Afghanistan, Gambia, Lesotho, Jamaica, Mozambique, Sri Lanka, Togo and Yemen. CER is also currently exploring the possibilities for coming into action to safeguard heritage threatened by gradually evolving yet equally catastrophic processes that result from climate change – rising-sea levels, land-/ water-erosion and desertification.

Through a number of case-studies, this short paper proposes to examine how local communities and heritage organisations have responded to these humanitarian disasters; as well as how the various organisations can coordinate relief efforts in favour of heritage.