Waste Landscapes at UNESCO World Heritage Sites: Challenging the Criteria

Summary

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2023: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

World Heritage sites are subject to a host of threats and impacts, be it from socio-economic pressures, climate change, or natural disasters. In more recent times, the threats from waste and, in particular plastic pollution, has become far more prevalent at various UNESCO sites around the world. There is indeed a growing concern over marine plastic debris at natural coastal sites such as the Galapagos Marine Reserve and Papahanaumokuakea National Marine Monument in Hawai’i. Archaeological sites, such as Machu Picchu and Angkor Wat face a growing anthropic pressure on the sites themselves and on waste management systems of the fast growing nearby towns relying on tourism. Waste impacts the aesthetics and the values associated with cultural and natural heritage, something at the core of selection criteria to be included on the UNESCO World Heritage List. This paper explores the relationship between UNESCO status and waste landscapes. While the World Heritage status facilitates unprecedented tourism and ensued waste mismanagement, the outstanding universal values, a condition for those sites to remain on the list, are directly threatened by impacts of waste and plastic pollution.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• SAA 2023: Individual Abstracts   •
• Society for American Archaeology 88th Annual Meeting, Portland, OR (2023)

Keywords

Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 36669.0