Micro-Climate Blog: Heritage in the New U.S. National Nature Assessment – Opportunity for Review of Outline

By Marcy Rockman, Lifting Rocks Climate and Heritage Consulting, for the SHA Climate Heritage Initiative

A new U.S. environmental assessment is underway – the National Nature Assessment (NNA). To date, the U.S. has published five National Climate Assessments and the sixth is now in preparation. The NNA will join this family, assessing not only what we know about our natural environment but how we know it. The initial outline of the NNA is now out for public review and comment and this outline includes, for the first time in these U.S. assessment reports, a titled chapter that considers cultural heritage.

If you’ve been reading this blog so far, it will not be a surprise that I see a need for an assessment with culture and heritage as the central focus. But a titled chapter within the NNA may be a critical starting point for considering and presenting issues, available data, and gaps in knowledge and management. So please review and submit comments if you can.

Topics I will have in mind as I review include:

• Current definitions of archaeology and heritage, how these have changed over time
• How changes in definitions and understandings of archaeology and heritage do and don’t reflect changing understandings of human relationships with the natural world
• Impacts and challenges to archaeology and heritage from climate change and efforts to address it
• Current systems for managing archaeology and heritage in relation to the environment and climate

Resources for thinking include the beautiful essay Trouble with Wilderness by environmental historian William Cronon and a recent study by me on Capacity of the U.S. Federal System for Cultural Heritage to Meet Challenges of Climate Change.

Review comments are due November 4, 2024.

Featured Link: https://www.globalchange.gov/notices/public-comment-nna1-zod

For a listing of all blog posts in this series, visit our Climate Heritage Initiative page.

Photo credit: Image from globalchange.gov announcing the call for review of the National Nature Assessment.