Part of the 2021–2022 series of the UMD Heritage Lectures, a lecture series co-sponsored by the Department of Anthropology and the School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation.
Ian Lilley
Professor Emeritus at the University of Queensland and Leiden University
Abstract
This presentation outlines a current project to revise IUCN’s Enhancing our Heritage Toolkit (EoH) and discusses the implications of such collaborations with nature conservation bodies for cultural heritage researchers and practitioners. Originally published in 2000 to improve nature conservation, the Toolkit provides a framework for assessing the effectiveness of protected area management. Moves to adapt the EoH for cultural heritage emerged in the mid-2000s, culminating in trials in Finland and Switzerland. The current project builds on that experience and related continuing efforts to integrate the conservation of natural and cultural heritage, particularly in World Heritage management. It brings together specialists from various international agencies to develop an updated “EoH 2.0” to apply to all World Heritage sites, natural, cultural and “mixed”. It will reflect developments in heritage conservation practice since the original toolkit was released and is explicitly linked with IUCN’s “Green List” best practice standards for area-based conservation. The developers are having sometimes “extreme” difficulties embracing issues common in traditional/Indigenous cultural contexts, reflecting well-documented long-term conceptual and practical struggles in this regard in nature conservation. While certainly not insulated from such troubles themselves, cultural heritage specialists can nonetheless usefully assist in such matters while at the same time learning valuable lessons from their natural heritage colleagues regarding monitoring and improving management effectiveness.
Bio
Ian Lilley is Professor Emeritus in the University of Queensland’s (UQ) School of Social Science. He moved there in “retirement” after 25 years leading the academic program in UQ’s Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies Unit, a federally-mandated support centre for Indigenous students. He is also inaugural (and now Emeritus) Willem Willems Chair for Contemporary Issues in Archaeological Heritage Management in the Faculty of Archaeology at Leiden University in the Netherlands. Ian has worked in Australasian and Indo-Pacific archaeology and heritage for about 45 years. Over the last 15 years he has become immersed in global World Heritage research and practice, especially concerning Indigenous and other traditional/descendent communities. Archaeologically he is working with French colleagues on long-term history in the French Pacific territory of New Caledonia. In Australia, he has a heritage project with Dutch partners on the WWII headquarters of the Netherlands East Indies government in exile. He also works with the US Defense POW-MIA Accounting Agency (DPAA), providing strategic advice regarding the recovery of missing US service members from WWII to the present and coordinating field missions to locate their remains.
Ian is a Fellow and immediate past Vice President and International Secretary of the Australian Academy of Humanities, a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries of London and an elected member of the Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies, a federal statutory body. He is a member of Australia ICOMOS, an ICOMOS World Heritage Assessor and immediate past Secretary-General of the ICOMOS International Committee on Archaeological Heritage Management (ICAHM). In addition, he is a member of the IUCN World Commission on Protected Areas and the IUCN Commission on Environmental, Economic and Social Policy. In these capacities, he undertakes IUCN assessments of World Heritage cultural landscapes. He is also immediate past Secretary-General of the Indo-Pacific Prehistory Association, the region's peak archaeological body, immediate past Chair of and continuing Advisor to the International Government Affairs Committee of the Society for American Archaeology, and served three consecutive terms as President of the Australian Archaeological Association. Ian's other professional interests are archaeology and social identity, archaeological ethics, and the role of archaeology and archaeological heritage in contemporary society.