Belmont Forum Climate and Cultural Heritage Joint Call
Coastal TALES asks: How can stories of past practices help people (re)discover more sustainable ways
of living in their rapidly changing coastal environments? Our goal is to show how heritage stories
can generate tangible local action that diverse communities can draw on to adapt to a changing
climate. We use a transdisciplinary approach, building on the knowledge and agency of local
communities in dialogue with academic expertise across the spectrum of humanities and sciences.
About
Facing a world undergoing significant social and ecological transformation, many people ask, “what
can I
do?”. Individual actions often feel insufficient, with little perceptible effect. Coastal TALES
attends to
this growing social need by examining how stories can generate tangible action and offer creative
inspiration to local communities and regional environmental stakeholders seeking to adapt
sustainably.
Coastal TALES is working with societal partners in three coastal areas: Kodiak Island, Alaska,
Dublin Bay in
Ireland and southwest Wales. These draw together different experiences of how environmental change
is
affecting distinct communities. Our aim is to understand how diverse heritage stories can help drive
action
in education, policy and nature-based innovations. Coastal TALES demonstrates the value of reviving
heritage
stories in three distinct social contexts, each of which uniquely illustrates how listening to
voices from
the past and empowering voices of the present can create a legacy for future generations and offer a
source
of resilience in the face of climate stress.
Expertise Related to UN Sustainable Development Goals
In 2015 the UN member states agreed to 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) to end poverty,
protect the
planet and ensure prosperity for all. This project contributes towards the following SDGs.
Alaska: Sugpiaq Storytelling and Cultural Revitalization Old Harbor, Kodiak
Suumacirpet “Our Way of Life” (Sugpiaq Values)
The Kodiak study examines commercialised fishing in an Indigenous context, encouraging youth to
draw on ancestral knowledge as a means to forge environmentally sustainable communities and
lifeways. We are working with Native community members, exploring how stories are used to educate
Sugpiaq youth in culturally appropriate responses to subsistence challenges. Stories told by the
elders at the Nuniaq Youth Culture Camp are used to teach younger generations to preserve and enact
heritage knowledge to sustain good relations in marine ecosystems. These stories, together with
knowledge drawn from the Alutiiq Museum’s oral history archives, are being used in curriculum
development, to co-create teaching materials relating past, present, and future relationships with
the lands and waters.
PI: Steven Beschloss Arizona State University
Research Team: Prof. Ben Fitzhugh and Dr Hollis Miller
(University
of Washington)
Societal Partners: Alutiiq Museum and Archaeological Repository,
Altuiq Tribe of Old Harbor, Old
Harbor Native Corporation/ Old Harbor
Alliance, University of Alaska
Funded by National Science Foundation
Ireland
Applying local and traditional knowledge for the coastal restoration of Dublin
In Dublin Bay oral histories are being used alongside historical maps used to help identify
practices of managing rising waters with hard and soft coastal defence structures. Here coastal
erosion is increasingly rectified by laying concrete. Our research advocates an alternative
approach, grounded in local and traditional knowledges within the wider Dublin Bay. Oral histories,
cartography, folklore archives and inter-generational dialogue are being explored to provide
mechanisms by which local knowledges can enable local action. The aim is to reintroduce a natural
coastal defence system of oyster beds, eelgrass, or stone reefs so that the rapidly degrading
coastal zones can be protected whilst boosting biodiversity.
PI: Prof. Poul Holm
Research Team: Dr Cordula Scherer
Societal Partners: ECO-UNESCO
Funded by Irish Environmental Protection Agency
Wales
The revival of local coastal heritage foods is foregrounded in coastal southwest Wales, with an
emphasis on learning how heritage stories can drive sustainable adaptation. Warming seas and
increased pollution in waterways are driving adaptation and communities are looking to heritage
production methods for inspiration. Traditional food practices are being revived in a modern context
to secure livelihoods, food security and encourage biodiversity. The stories told by local
businesses will be examined to better understand how cultural heritage may provide fresh insights,
inspiring locals to innovate and adapt to meet sustainability challenges.
PI: Prof. Louise Steel
Research Team: Dr Luci Attala, Gareth Thomas, Prof. Steven
Hartman
Societal Partners: Câr y Môr, Cardigan Bay Fish, Teifi Coracles
The Interwoven Project explores how the Arts and Humanities can contribute to addressing contemporary ecological and environmental challenges. Supported by the Catalyst Fund, Interwoven brings together researchers from Coastal TALES with staff and students from WISA, working in collaboration with Clare Revera of Welsh Baskets.
The project’s central aim is to co-design a sustainable heritage basket for Coastal TALES’ societal partner, Câr-y-Môr, as an environmentally friendly alternative to the plastic bags and baskets currently used for shellfish and seaweed harvesting.
We begin this series focussing on publications from 2025, with a paper written by Luci Attala, Louise Steel, and Gareth Thomas, BRIDGES IPO and UK Hub, UWTSD, and Nigel Robins: Geographer and specialist in Welsh industrial history.
In a significant submission to the UK Parliament, a transdisciplinary team challenge traditional "top-down" approaches to environmental restoration, arguing that the true value of Wales’ industrial legacy lies as much in its "intangible" culture as in its ecology; demonstrating the value of local, historical, and cultural stories to foster climate change adaptation and coastal resilience.
The paper was submitted as written evidence for the Welsh Affairs Committee of the UK Parliament, published 19 March 2025.
This article argues that sustainability governance in small-scale regenerative aquaculture arises less from formal regulation than from the relational, ethical, and temporal labour of practitioners. Based on an ethnographic study of Câr-y-Môr, Wales’s first community-owned regenerative ocean farm, the research combines over 250 h of participant observation, 25 interviews, and document analysis with transdisciplinary humanities-informed sustainability science (THiSS).
Authors: Sadhbh Horan and Cordula Scherer, Trinity Centre for Environmental Humanities, Sept 2025.
In June 2025, our first in-person workshop with the international team of Coastal TALES took place. Having spent the first few days of the meeting in my local Dublin, blessed with good weather and unusually high temperatures, the team were eager to begin the Welsh leg of the agenda.
On Thursday 10th April Profs. Louise Steel and Luci Attala presented Heritage Tales of Coastal Adaptation in Northern Regions at the Apheleia bi-weekly online conference series, chaired by Professor Luis Oosterbeek, president of CIPSH (International Council for the Philosophy and Human Sciences).
The plenary session of the online Midterm Event for the Belmont Forum’s Climate and Cultural Heritage projects took place on Tuesday 29th April. Sixteen projects were selected for funding by the Belmont Forum, including Coastal TALES.
A paper published as Written Evidence for the UK Parliament to consider: The environmental and economic legacy of Wales' industrial past. Coastal Tales: Kilvey Hill (Swansea) and the Teifi as Projects of Contentious Urban Woodland and River Restoration.
Professor Louise Steel will be representing Coastal TALES and UNESCO-MOST BRIDGES at the forthcoming Cultural Heritage and Climate Change Event: Reflections from Projects and Future Steps, at the British Council Offices in Stratford, East London, 25-26th February.
The UNESCO-MOST BRIDGES Coastal TALES project was invited to present at COP29, showcasing a compelling short film at the 'Bio- Cultural Heritage for the Future: Mobilizing the Past for Climate Resilience' event.
The Coastal TALES project, led by the UNESCO-MOST BRIDGES (UK) hub at UWTSD, has successfully secured €770,000 of funding in Belmont Forum’s Climate and Cultural Heritage joint call (CCH 2023).
