Pacific Risk Management Conference: Relevance for Cultural Institutions

When a climate-driven flood, storm, or fire roars into your community, nearly everyone is affected. Pre-planning a response helps anyone or anything survive, recover from, and then thrive after the event. That's called resilience.

With so much more risk and damage around us, everyone will have to help, not just the first-responders, the waste haulers, and the construction crews.

Last week I attended the Pacific Risk Management 'Ohana (family/group) known as PRiMO to find connections among cultural institutions sector and the risk and disaster management sector. There is so much room for zoos, aquariums, museums of all kinds to work with our communities to help manage the increasingly frequent crises. I didn't find much happening, yet, but I did find terrific willingness among NOAA scientists, emergency communications specialists, community managers, and product developers to work with the cultural sector. They don't like disasters any more than we do! They too want to help the public understand the science of climate change, plan better for themselves, and make changes that will reduce risk and increase resilience.

So, if you had to deal with a present or future natural disaster in your community, what would your museum, zoo, garden or historic site do to help? If your community were in recovery mode, what could you do?

Short term: Could

• your site be an accessible gathering spaces for preparation planning and staging, for professionals to host at-risk populations, and to provide services or staging during recovery?
• you allow your empty parking lots be the staging site for power company equipment or emergency communication vehicles? 

Post-disaster: Could 

• your staff collect stories and oral histories from the community, then plan to share the stories of resilience and recovery in your community while memorializing losses and achievements?
• your collections provide the information for restoring what has been lost?
• your zoo and aquarium plan to care for a certain number of injured animals, and plan to relocate others suitably?

NOAA has a great resource Digital Coast with instructions to 3-D print your own coral polyp modules
You can made them sensitive to a warming ocean and watch them bleach!

Long term: Could 

• your aquarium be part of the process of educating people to protect coral reefs while rebuilding a living, resilient coral reef to protect your shores against rising seas and storm surges?
• your historical records help explore potential impacts and better solutions for the future?
• you educate the public about the science of safe drinking water and how to protect themselves after an event...maybe explain how MadiDrops work...
  
  
  
  
  
  

  

  https://www.madidrop.com/how-it-works/

There's no limit the the relevant topics your museum, garden, aquarium, zoo or historic site can interpret. And there is so much your physical plant can provide to support the resilience effort.

Please join the disaster planning conversations in your community. Help each other!

Museums & UN Sustainable Development Goals: IV #1, #13, #15, #17 on Oahu

This post is a call to action for Honolulu's museums to work together on community resilience to climate impacts, and to provide an example for peers in other cities, especially in the 100 Resilient Cities. 

When the world around us changes profoundly, culture and community are our best resources as we work to adapt and thrive. The recent flooding in the islands has brought as many stories of generous assistance and sacrifice as they have of tragedy. This is common in a disaster: the most prevalent summary of the disaster experience is how community came together in unanticipated ways.

We need not wait for a crisis to connect more deeply with community; there are ways to prepare our communities so that they experience less damage, and the people feel their common strength and more agency in creating the safe future they deserve. Resilience planning, particularly with the support of cultural institutions, is a valuable way to do that. If we leave it to government alone, then we will not be able to shape the result as much as we desire. Certainly, the work is too wide-ranging, too detailed, too important to leave to one authority. We must share the authority and responsibility.

I urge Hawaii’s charitable institutions, particularly those with an emphasis on arts and humanities, and science and technology, to take the lead in hosting resilience discussions around the state. Our institutions are more trusted than government, other nonprofits, and even credible news outlets (Dillenschneider, 2017). Our sites are familiar and welcoming locations for important, potentially challenging discussions. Our staff and collections have many of the intellectual resources and professional connections to inform these discussions and to educate participants on the science and history that can guide us in finding new solutions. Museums and similar institutions can take the lead in bringing together emergency and public office planners, and residents so we can co-create a stronger, thriving future.

(c) Sarah Sutton 2018

We find culture in our family and neighborly traditions and habits, in our community history and present-day efforts, and in the histories and stories of the land, sea, and people. We find community wherever we look on our islands. I commend the Bishop Museum for its resilience planning session during March, and the Resilient Oahu staff for its willingness to work with cultural institutions to contribute to the island’s resilience plan. Let’s expand that work.

Strawbery Banke Museum is facilitating community discussion on response to nuisance tides and sea level rise in Portsmouth, NH, where its neighbors also own and worry about historic structures. The Annapolis Historical Commission, MD, is leading the country in addressing nuisance tides and sea level rise in historic economic districts.

What conversations does your community need around resilience? How can your institution make these happen? Use the materials provided, for free, on the websites of the National Institution Standards and Technology (complex), and the National Park Service (much more accessible) to plan your resilience study and response. Ask your local cultural institution to host and help design those talks with government and emergency planners, college and university staff, business owners, architects and landscape designers, scientists and heritage practitioners. Work with the City & County of Honolulu Office on Climate Change, Resilience and Sustainability.

This is our home; if we wish it to shelter and nurture us, we must help it to do so.   

Sarah Sutton is principal of Sustainable Museums, a Waialua-based consultancy helping museums, zoos, aquariums, gardens, and historic sites become more environmentally sustainable and work with their communities to become more resilient to the changing climate. She spoke at the Hawaii Museums Association’s conference May 4^th and will be speaking on July 11^th  in ‘Iolani Palace’s Nā Mo'olelo Lecture Series , both in Honolulu. 

Museums & UN Sustainable Development Goals: III #11 & #17 Strawbery Banke Museum and Sea Level Rise

I've invited a guest post by Rodney D. Rowland at Strawbery Banke Museum. His story of how the museum works with City of Portsmouth, NH, to address Sea Level Rise impact is an important example of the vulnerability assessment process, and the special value of museums in that process for advancing the science of understanding, and the special role of museums in community engagement for planning. 

The museum sits at the lowest point in the City.

Strawbery Banke Museum is located 400 feet from the banks of the Piscataqua River, in downtown Portsmouth NH. It is a nine-acre living history museum that maintains 37 historic houses, most on their original foundations. In keeping with its commitment for Strawbery Banke to be “a place to learn, a place to gather and a sustainable resource for the community,” the museum has adopted specific “green” initiatives in its most recent Strategic and Long-Range Plans. From adopting ‘zero waste’ practices at signature events to selecting a higher-efficiency chiller for the seasonal ice rink, Strawbery Banke considers environmentally-friendly practices good for the health of the planet and the museum.

Toward that end, Strawbery Banke is now collaborating with the City of Portsmouth as a case study in identifying and mitigating the impact of sea level rise on the waterfront and on ground water. One house, the Shapley Drisco House (yellow building in the photo), was built in 1795 along what was a tidal inlet called Puddle Dock.  The inlet was filled in in circa 1905. This building serves an important interpretive “Change Over Time” message for the museum, showing two time periods (1795 and 1955) in furnished spaces on the first floor. The building is also an important income-producing site for the museum for its rented commercial space on the second floor.

For over a decade the house and contents have experienced accelerated deterioration due to salt water infiltration during, originally, storm surge and, now, astronomically high tide or King Tides. The increased rate of infiltration is due to a rise in overall sea level.  During tidal events from December 2017 through March 2018, 16 to 27 inches of salt water was observed in the basement. [Sarah's note: see the fantastic time lapse video here.]

Mechanic Street, one block from the museum,  during a King Tide.

Seeking a solution to this increasing threat to Strawbery Banke and other low-lying properties in the neighborhood, the City of Portsmouth invited the museum to join in its Local Advisory Committee (LAC) for the Climate Change Vulnerability Assessment on Historic Portsmouth. Using data and maps created during the Coastal Resilience Initiative, the LAC undertook the process of evaluating parts of the City most vulnerable to sea level rise and storm surge with the objective of selecting test sites to model mitigation strategies. Every property in the high risk area was given am historic value, a cultural value, and a monetary value. Strawbery Banke, with some of the most historic and well-preserved houses, and 90,000 annual visitors, and assessed property value, achieved a score in the top tier for all three. All of the evaluated at-risk areas were included on the City’s storyboard. As mitigation strategies are fully-vetted they will be include at this site for the community to follow. 

As this partnership continues to grow, other organizations are coming forward to talk about what they are doing in the area of climate change. In March 2018, the museum hosted a summit with 12 other state organizations to share ideas and research, alongside Strawbery Banke and the City. It is these community wide partnerships that will help create the best solutions. Spread the word, share your stories, and make sure you are at your Climate Change Assessment table!

Rodney Rowland, Director of Special Projects and Facilities, volunteered for Strawbery Banke first in 1976. He is currently responsible for the historic properties on the site, overseeing the properties and restoration department and is project manager for various projects.  After graduating from Lake Forest College with a B.A. in history, Rodney interned with the museum, then joined the museum staff in 1990, as curatorial assistant working with the Curator on new exhibits and processing the decorative arts collection.  He later became Collections Manager and was lead objects conservator for the 1943 Little Corner Store project.  In 2004, Rodney was promoted to manage the construction of the TYCO Visitors Center (2005) and the Carter Collections Center (2008).  603-422-7525, rrowland@strawberybanke.org

What Is It about Jargon and Environmental Sustainability?

I watched a recent Facebook discussion rail against the constant use of the term "resilience". I was drawn to the debate because I was researching a blogpost for Center for the Future of Museums on, wait for it, resilience.

What is it about jargon and environmental sustainability?

When I speak to new audiences or work with new clients, I first must overcome the suspicions and inaccurate assumptions about environmental sustainability.

Often the obstacle is the trendy appearance of a green message. Many new terms struggle through a rough lifetime arc. Here is what it looks like:

• born into obscurity;
• steady development suddenly explodes into market saturation;
• the term's celebrity damages its reputation; and then
• the public dismisses it as jargon.

This is compounded as every idea is tested, refined, and tested again. As practitioners learn  more through each test, the language gets more specific. The terms proliferate and the cycles go 'round, and 'round, and 'round. Soon it seems to outsiders that there are more trials than successes, and more jargon than clarity. The public is weary and the language is tired.

Rebuilding Marshland with Pickering Creek

What's a greenie to do?  Keep on keeping on.

• Give them successes. Invite them to join you. 
• Admit that it doesn't always work. Ask them for ideas. 
• Engage them in conversation. Model green practice. 
• Learn all you can to improve green practice. 

...and celebrate when the public complains about green lingo: it means they've been hearing a lot of something green; it means something or someone is raising awareness; and some of it will lead to clearer thinking, continued practice, and continuous improvement.

Best of all, some of that jargon will become shared understanding and platforms for collective work.

Some people may not like the term resilience. That's okay.
I can guarantee that they will like what resilience can do for them, and their families and communities. Really, that is all that matters.