Biodiversity | Heritage Futures

Biological diversity – or ‘biodiversity’ – is understood as the variability of life on Earth; the diversity of biotic life within any given area. Biological diversity can be considered at a range of scales-within species, between species and across ecosystems. The Convention on Biological Diversity, a multilateral treaty which aims to promote biodiversity and sustainable use of natural resources, was launched at the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro in 1992. Since that time, the conservation of biodiversity in its constituent forms has become a goal of a number of regional, national and international organizations. Within the project, we work within and across fields concerned with the conservation of crop diversity, plant and animal species diversity, protected area management and the conservation and maintenance of ecosystem diversity. Each of our partner organisations work in different ways to achieve these aims. Importantly, our project explored intersections between natural and cultural heritage conservation, ways in which these might be redefined and considered collectively, and the possibility for developing shared solutions to common problems across these two domains.

Partners

The Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew

The Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, is an international research centre into biodiversity in several fields. ...

http://www.kew.org/science-conservation/collections

Partners

Nordgen

The search for ‘improved’ yield and resilience in crop varieties has resulted in increased homogeneity ...

http://www.nordgen.org

Partners

The Frozen Ark

The IUCN maintains a ‘red list’ of the state of the world’s taxa, and monitors ...

http://www.frozenark.org/

Partners

Endangered Languages Documentation Programme (ELDP)

Linguists estimate that half of the 7000 spoken languages today will have fallen silent by ...

Biological diversity - or ‘biodiversity’ - is understood as the variability of life on Earth; the diversity of biotic life within any given area.

The Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew

Nordgen

The Frozen Ark

Endangered Languages Documentation Programme (ELDP)

Reflections on 'Techniques of Worlding'

Transforming Loss: Knowledge Exchange at Orford

Collecting Change/Changing Collections - report on the goals and challenges of contemporary collecting

The Collections We Want to See: Contemporary Collecting Knowledge Exchange

Esther Breithoff and Rodney Harrison. 2018. From ark to bank: extinction, proxies and biocapitals in ex-situ biodiversity conservation practices. International Journal of Heritage Studies.

Assembling and Conserving Biodiversity in a Frozen Ark

Rodney Harrison . 2017. Freezing Seeds and Making Futures: Endangerment, Hope, Security, and Time in Agrobiodiversity Conservation Practices. Culture, Agriculture, Food & Environment 39(2): 80–89

Can heritage be thriving in an age of extinction?

Landscapes in Limbo

Techniques of Worlding: Categorization Knowledge Exchange at Kew

A Berlin Thought Experiment: Heritage Futures Visits CARMaH

Dreaming with your eyes open

Summary of the Nature-Culture Workshop at IUCN

Techniques of Worlding: Categorization Knowledge Exchange at Kew

Is it Doomsday yet? We need to talk about eternity

Afterlives Salon

The 100,000 Year Question

From the Vault to the Archive

Red Squirrel vs. Peter Rabbit: two future concepts in conservation

Cabinets of Consequence

Rodney Harrison (2015) Beyond “Natural” and “Cultural” Heritage: Toward an Ontological Politics of Heritage in the Age of Anthropocene, Heritage & Society, 8:1, 24-42

Svalbard Global Seed Vault: A Tale of Two Treaties

What does Doomsday look like?

Nature/Culture Heritage Surgery: Building Sustainable Heritage Futures in the Anthropocene

Conserving diversity: Understanding biological, cultural, linguistic and ecological diversity conservation practices in comparative perspective

Assembling Alternative Futures for Heritage

CHAT

On filing