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Nan Madol
Places
Explore our cultural and natural heritage sites across the globe
Preserving Legacies is partnered with 10 cultural and natural heritage sites in 2023. These places of cultural significance, explored below, represent different heritage typologies, like archeological sites and living agricultural landscapes, and different climate threats, like sea level rise and extreme heat. While this diverse first cohort spans continents, cultures, and climate impacts, they all share a deep commitment to learn, connect, and build something new together.
Primary Sites
In the first year of Preserving Legacies, our two primary sites will go through a more robust program to link climate science and site conservation by enabling access to locally downscaled climate change models and organize a community-led workshop of the sites’ climate vulnerability as well as impacts on local communities.
Cadet Sites
In the first year of Preserving Legacies, eight cadet sites have been chosen to fully engage in climate heritage training and a peer-to-peer learning experience. Site custodians from these sites will shadow the full process at Petra and the Rice Terraces, including attending their workshops, to better prepare for their own assessments in 2024.
Federated States of Micronesia
Nan Madol
Nan Madol is a settlement complex built atop artificial islands extended across a shallow reef platform within the fringing reef of the adjacent small island of Temwen. On the islets are monumental stone structures, some with walls some 6-7 meters high. The islets are constructed of basalt and coral boulders topped by lengths of prismatic/columnar basalt placed in header and stretcher patterns that surround tombs, residential complexes, and sites for sacred/ceremonial activities. The megalithic construction of the site took place from AD 1200-1300 to AD 1500-1600, and involved the small island populations in the mining, moving and maneuvering of an estimated 2,000 tons of volcanic rock. The site is at risk from a range of factors including the siltation of waterways and incursion of vegetation.