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Decolonizing climate change–heritage research

Nature Climate Change volume 12, pages 210–213 (2022)Cite this article

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Climate change poses a threat to heritage globally. Decolonial approaches to climate change–heritage research and practice can begin to address systemic inequities, recognize the breadth of heritage and strengthen adaptation action globally.

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Fig. 1: Colonial legacies affecting inequities in climate change–heritage research and practice.

Data availability

The underlying dataset for Fig. 1a is available open access from the supplemental material in ref. 5, and datasets for Fig. 1b,c from the UNESCO World Heritage List 2021 in ref. 32.

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Acknowledgements

N.P.S. received financial support from the UK government’s Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office and the International Development Research Centre, Ottawa, Canada (grant number 109419-001). C.H.T. is supported by the FLAIR Fellowship Programme: a partnership between the African Academy of Sciences and the Royal Society funded by the UK government’s Global Challenges Research Fund. N.K. is supported by the Mapping Africa’s Endangered Archaeological Sites and Monuments project funded by Arcadia — a charitable fund of Lisbet Rausing and Peter Baldwin. S.S. is funded by the Leverhulme Trust Doctoral Training Scheme, hosted by Southampton Marine and Maritime Institute at the University of Southampton.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. African Climate and Development Initiative, University of Cape Town, Cape Town, South Africa

    Nicholas P. Simpson & Christopher H. Trisos

  2. School of Art, Media and American Studies, University of East Anglia, Norwich, UK

    Joanne Clarke

  3. Institute for Sustainable Heritage, University College London, London, UK

    Scott Allan Orr

  4. International Development Research Centre, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada

    Georgina Cundill

  5. School of International and Public Affairs, Columbia University, New York, NY, USA

    Ben Orlove

  6. Faculty of Architecture and the Built Environment, Delft University of Technology, Delft, The Netherlands

    Sandra Fatorić

  7. Faculty of Engineering and Physical Sciences, University of Southampton, Southampton, UK

    Salma Sabour

  8. Institute of Arab and Islamic Studies, University of Exeter, Exeter, UK

    Nadia Khalaf

  9. Department of Anthropology, University of Maryland, College Park, MD, USA

    Marcy Rockman

  10. Institute for Advanced Studies, University of São Paulo, São Paulo, Brazil

    Patricia Pinho

  11. Caribbean Environmental Sciences and Renewable Energy Journal, Port-of-Spain, Trinidad and Tobago

    Shobha S. Maharaj

  12. Archinova Environs, Panaji, India

    Poonam V. Mascarenhas

  13. Department of Archaeology and Heritage Studies, Aarhus University, Aarhus, Denmark

    Nick Shepherd

  14. University of Pretoria, Pretoria, South Africa

    Nick Shepherd

  15. Africa Leadership and Management Academy, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa

    Pindai M. Sithole

  16. Department of Plant Sciences, Kenyatta University, Nairobi, Kenya

    Grace Wambui Ngaruiya

  17. Sustainable and Resilient City Initiatives Unit, eThekwini Municipality, Durban, South Africa

    Debra C. Roberts

  18. School of Life Sciences, University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban, South Africa

    Debra C. Roberts

  19. Centre for Statistics in Ecology, Environment and Conservation, University of Cape Town, Cape Town, South Africa

    Christopher H. Trisos

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Contributions

N.P.S. and J.C. were responsible for conceptualization and administration of the project; N.P.S., J.C., S.A.O., G.C., B.O., S.F., S.S., N.K., M.R., P.P., S.S.M., P.V.M., N.S., P.M.S., G.W.N., D.C.R. and C.H.T. were responsible for resources and wrote the original draft; N.P.S., J.C., S.A.O., G.C. and B.O. reviewed and edited the manuscript; and C.H.T. was responsible for funding acquisition. N.P.S. and J.C. contributed equally.

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Correspondence to Nicholas P. Simpson or Joanne Clarke.

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Simpson, N.P., Clarke, J., Orr, S.A. et al. Decolonizing climate change–heritage research. Nat. Clim. Chang. 12, 210–213 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41558-022-01279-8

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