Blue Shield’s President, Professor Peter Stone, has been on a global tour to address colleagues worldwide on the protection of heritage in crisis.
Speaking on the work of the Blue Shield Movement relating to climate change, and heritage in crisis – with a particular focus on religious heritage, Stone attended
- Opportunities for Heritage: Fostering Innovation, Conservation, and Sustainability, in the Sultanate of Oman, Muscat 24th – 27th February 2024, organised by the UNESCO Chair in Heritage Tourism.
- One World, Many Crises: Politics, Law, and Beyond”, at the University of Athens, 7-9th March 2024, co-organised by the UNESCO Chair on Climate Diplomacy, and spoke at
- Sacred Sites Promoting Pluralism, at the Château d’Hautevillein Switzerland, 15 March, organised by Pepperdine University.
The events convened global experts on culture, heritage, education, human rights, interfaith dialogue, religious freedom, and sustainability to discuss current issues, strategies to address them, and the potential for collaboration. The discussions aimed to generate new ideas for heritage protection in crisis, such as how sacred sites can promote pluralism by integrating multiple areas of work to potentially deliver more durable results for all three areas: human rights protection, interfaith promotion, and cultural heritage preservation.
Climate change, identity wars, sustainability - these are some of the global issues of our time all of which impact heavily on communities and their heritage. Blue Shield is working to make sure that our cultural heritage is still available for the next generation. As much as heritage can be a marker of exclusion, it can also promote inclusion and pluralism, and shared understanding of each other. Threats to cultural property can be significantly mitigated if action is taken and partnerships are developed in peacetime. This approach needs government and cross-sector support from the heritage, humanitarian, and uniformed sectors, together.
