A Time for Action in Cultural Heritage Conservation

From wildfires to floods – or through slow, insidious environmental changes like insect incursions and mould, our changing climate can put historic and artistic works at risk and undermine sites that have stood for centuries or millennia in an instant.

Conservation of the Archaeological Site of Dangeil, Sudan, and Its Associated Collections, Francesca Guiducci/ Berber-Abidiya Archaeological Project, 2019, From the collection of: UK Government

The scale of the damage to environment, society and cultural heritage depends on how fast we can act – which includes sharing knowledge and resources on a global scale.

Conservation students in the lab at the University of Glasgow, Kelvin Centre for Conservation and Cultural Heritage Research, University of Glasgow, 2019, From the collection of: UK Government

IIC is the oldest international art conservation organisation. We come to the climate crisis inspired by the example of past conservators. Our founders in 1950 were some of the Monuments Men and pioneering women who did much to preserve art on the ruins of Europe after WWII.

It will also begin to shape steps to solving the hardest questions – how can we preserve cultural heritage while getting our own carbon footprint to zero?

Conservators and colleagues in every corner of the world are well placed to see climate change unfolding in real time. 

Many are already working in extreme environments, likely to become more volatile in coming years.

We also know that there will be situations where heritage professionals will face hard decisions when they cannot save everything, as happened to Rebecca Kennedy, Collections Manager in an art institution when six hurricanes hit Florida in quick succession in 2004.

Saiful Bakhri, a conservator at Bali Cultural Heritage Preservation Office is a true sustainability actor in the profession, enabling practice by using natural preparations, such as citronella as a fungicide, and local tools to preserve heritage affordably and locally.

IIC is committed to making sustainability a feature of every part of our programmes – from our hybrid conferences to our leadership programmes aimed to support a new generation to act with decisiveness, expertise and resilience to the challenges to come.