Orkney hosts international conference linking past to our future sustainability

Experts from around the world will gather in Orkney this week to explore how we can take lessons from the past to help deal with future sustainability issues.

How did ancient peoples cope with tsunamis, floods and droughts? What really happened on Easter Island? How can we make best use of our heritage in the future? Does the past matter?  How did people first find and occupy Orkney? These are some of the questions that will be aired at the international conference  Sustainability and Heritage: How can the past contribute to a sustainable future?

Leaders from archaeology and other disciplines from around the world – including Easter Island, USA and Iceland – will be sharing their knowledge on how people confronted and dealt with issues such as environmental change in the past, and what lessons we might take from past societies.

The conference will also be looking at how communities around the world are working to preserve heritage in the face of factors such as coastal erosion arising from climate change – an issue of current concern in Orkney where coastline is regularly exposed to the full force of North Sea and Atlantic storms.

The conference is being led by archaeologists from Orkney College UHI, and a team from the Universities of Stirling, Bradford, and City University New York.

Jane Downes, head of archaeology at Orkney College UHI explained: “We are looking at what a difference heritage can make to the world, from a whole range of different perspectives.

“Hosting the conference in Orkney provides an example of a community to which heritage is very important economically, and a rich archaeological resource which is very visibly disappearing into the sea.”

“The research that Orkney College UHI archaeologists are undertaking in the Orkney World Heritage Site has exposed researchers to the same kind of concerns surrounding other World Heritage Sites, with Easter Island another example where heritage is central to the economy.

“The issues faced by people in Orkney and Easter Island, in terms of visitor pressure on monuments and coastal erosion are very similar; this conference will promote discussion around how sites are researched and managed in two very different places, and best practice will be shared.”