Jonathan Karkut
London Metropolitan University
UK
UNESCO Geoparks Network: A rocky road to heritage dialogues with the Earth
Sciences
As demonstrated in the call for papers to this conference, a very broad sweep of
academic and practitioner interests can now be seen to converge and engage in
dialogues around cultural heritage. To this growing disciplinary list it may come as a
surprise to some, that the natural science of geology can now be added. The most
prominent pathway along which this dialogue has taken place, has been through and
around a concept called geoparks.
Geoparks initially emerged as a response to encourage local and global efforts
towards geoconservation that is the recognition and protection of significant
geological or geomorphological sites. But in just over a decade, interest and
awareness of the model and its associated networks has expanded at a considerable
pace, so that today 89 geoparks are now spread over 27 nations in four continents.
In that time too, geoparks grew beyond a simple geological conservation and
awareness model, to incorporate significant components of life long learning and
sustainable development principally promoted through the growth of geotourism.
The approach is also a social network and association of local territories that sit
underneath and draw loose, though strengthening, and support from UNESCO. This
complex arrangement now presents the geopark as having a;
‘…direct impact on the territory by influencing its inhabitants’ living conditions and
environment. The objective is to enable the inhabitants to reappropriate the values of
the territory’s heritage and actively participate in the territory’s cultural revitalization
as a whole’ (European Geoparks Network, 2012)1
This paper explores the model and critically looks at how geoparks have attempted
to interpret and communicate a more complete heritage of landscapes,
incorporating elements of the physical, natural and culture heritage.