Historic Gardens as a Cultural Task: Climate Adaptation Strategies and Understanding of Nature

Abstract

The cultivation and preservation of gardens, parks and cultural landscapes as fine art have been expressions of culture for millennia and are becoming essential tasks of cultural property protection in times of climate change. This is because the visible effects of climate change are increasingly threatening the historical aesthetics and current uses of historic gardens. Strategies for climate adaptation require not only thorough and networked experiential knowledge in the field of conservation and restoration sciences but also specific and interdisciplinary research expertise. Gardens as cultural assets must become scientific model laboratories to understand cultivation and conservation as essential cultural tasks of our societies. These challenges must lead to a new understanding of nature that initiates and perpetuates a responsible, humane sense of life through the gardens.