One in three natural heritage sites and one in six cultural heritage sites face a race against climate change, and today a coalition of over 100 heritage organizations spanning the Global North and South is mobilizing to meet that crisis head-on.
Heritage Adapts! launched as the first global campaign uniting the heritage sector behind a single mission: getting at least 3,000 sites and living practices to take locally led climate adaptation action by 2030. Led by Preserving Legacies—an initiative supported by the National Geographic Society—and the EU-funded European Heritage Hub, the campaign taps into something that governments and corporations have largely overlooked: heritage itself is not just a victim of climate change, but part of the solution.
The urgency is stark. According to UNESCO, climate-related hazards at heritage sites have surged 40% in just one decade, and more than one in four sites could hit potentially irreversible tipping points by 2050. The threat extends across ecosystems too—60% of World Heritage Forests and 66% of World Heritage Marine Sites face climate risk. Yet this grim picture only captures a fraction of the world's true heritage landscape. Most sites, cultural practices, and landscapes that communities deeply value remain untracked by international frameworks, a gap that leaves local stewards on the frontlines chronically underfunded and unsupported.
Sneška Quaedvlieg-Mihailović, Project Leader of the European Heritage Hub and Secretary General of Europa Nostra, framed the campaign's significance plainly: heritage "helps communities navigate the future" by connecting them to their identity, land, and history. This recognition represents a fundamental shift. Heritage adaptation has been almost entirely absent from both climate finance and global policy conversations, leaving communities to fend for themselves despite sitting atop generations of climate-tested knowledge.
Heritage Adapts! addresses this void through practical tools and connection. The campaign provides technical guidance, localized data access, and a global online community that links heritage stewards facing similar challenges. It offers what frontline communities need most: not just awareness of the problem, but concrete pathways to action and international solidarity. The initiative has already earned recognition from the U.N.'s climate agency as a Plan to Accelerate Solutions advancing the Global Goal on Adaptation.
Cristina Garzillo Leemhuis, Head of Socio-Cultural Transformations at ICLEI Europe and a partner in the European Heritage Hub, noted that the campaign "strongly reinforces" work already underway in promoting culture-based climate action and strengthening place-based responses across Europe and beyond. What distinguishes Heritage Adapts! is its global ambition combined with hyperlocal action—it doesn't impose solutions from above but instead empowers communities to adapt using the knowledge and practices they already possess.
The collective pledge at the heart of the campaign invites heritage stewards worldwide to join not as isolated guardians, but as part of a growing movement. In a world where climate adaptation often feels like a top-down mandate, Heritage Adapts! recognizes something simpler and more powerful: communities have always known how to change, persist, and thrive. Heritage is how they've passed that wisdom forward. Now, with global partners behind them, they can use it to build resilience for what comes next.