A new dedicated "thematic community" will present inspiring solutions relating to nature-culture interlinkages. Hosted by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), International Centre for the Study of the Preservation and Restoration of Cultural Property (ICCROM) and the International Council on Monuments and Sites (ICOMOS), the thematic community will focus on the role of culture in the conservation of nature and its interconnective qualities. It will present solutions from places valued for their cultural significance, across indigenous peoples’ territories, rural and coastal landscapes, seascapes and urban landscapes, but also on the wider spectrum of protected and conserved areas and its connection to culture.
The solutions will both create and provide a focus on traditional knowledge, a community of practice that does not yet exist on PANORAMA. This will create a potential for scaling-up solutions across different categories of cultural and natural places. The new thematic community will link with other thematic communities to highlight the importance of culture in conservation. For instance, it will point out how the geography of nature-culture collaboration is understood in Marine and Costal solutions. This will allow a fresh look at seascapes or marine and coastal solutions through the lenses of culture.
The Nature-Culture thematic community will be launched in Sydney, during the ICOMOS General Assembly in the first 10 days of October 2020. Prior to this, a pre-launch will take place at the IUCN World Conservation Congress in June 2020. The new thematic community “Nature- Culture” would also be given significant profile at the Convention on Biological Diversity COP15 in Kunming, China (October 2020).