Articulating Loss: A Thematic Framework for Understanding Coastal Heritage Transformations

The coast is a dynamic landscape characterised by change. Although coastal change can provide opportunities to engage with the past as archaeological sites are exposed and uncovered, it also means that climate change pressures are likely to exacerbate and accelerate the inevitable loss of coastal heritage. Many projects and initiatives focus on protecting and saving threatened sites, but there has been less attention to developing tools that will help the heritage profession manage and communicate around loss. New strategies are needed to help heritage professionals engage with communities confronted with the vulnerability of valued coastal heritage sites, and to counter perceptions of mismanagement and misunderstanding. This paper aims to develop language to better articulate the ways in which change and loss are likely to be experienced at coastal heritage sites, so that the challenges and opportunities presented by each situation may be fully appreciated by heritage managers and communities navigating these changes. It does not address the question of how to preserve and protect, but conversely seeks to explore how to respond to and understand loss.

When Loss is More: From Managed Decline to Adaptive Release

Within the heritage sector there is widespread recognition that the accelerating effects of climate and other changes will necessitate reconsideration of the care of at-risk places and properties. Heritage organisations and agencies are developing new ways to identify and measure future threats, and to prioritise resources accordingly. For some designated assets, it is becoming clear, it may be necessary to manage processes of decline and transformation. Drawing on insights gathered from conversations with natural and historic environment practitioners and regulators, this paper highlights current practice and policy around managed decline, with a focus on the English context. In seeking to address some of the limitations of current approaches, this paper introduces a new conceptual framework: adaptive release. Adaptive release, as presented here, reflects a decision to accommodate the dynamic transformation of a heritage asset and its associated values and significance, with reference to wider landscape settings. The focus is on iterative management over extended timeframes, involving some relinquishment of control and a commitment to ongoing monitoring and interpretation. The concept of adaptive release is presented provisionally, rather than prescriptively, to expand the range of options available to natural and historic environment professionals in responding to inevitable change.

Loss in the Time of Corona

Historic England blog exploring what loss means during the Covid-19 pandemic.