July 31, 2026
This guide is adapted from the Australian Government’s Climate change toolkit for World Heritage properties in Australia (the toolkit). The toolkit was developed to support climate change vulnerability assessment and adaptation planning for World Heritage properties in Australia. It provides a 4-step method to scoping an approach, identifying climate change impacts, considering vulnerability and risk, and planning for adaptation. This method is suitable for managers of other heritage places and protected areas. This guide can assist managers of other protected areas with assessing climate risks, by using a similar approach.
This short guide can be used by managers of other heritage places and protected areas, to help them use the toolkit and to incorporate their site’s key values and relevant climate data for their region. The reader will need to access the full toolkit for more detailed guidance. The approach in the toolkit is particularly relevant for managing protected areas in a rapidly changing climate. It includes templates and examples from a World Heritage context and guidance for considering other values such as other Matters of National Environmental Significance, Ramsar wetland ecological character, threatened and migratory species, state or local protections and social or community values.
It is important to note that climate risk assessment and adaptation is intended to be an iterative and cyclical process revisited on a regular basis in the future. The protected area manager may decide to revisit a high-level assessment of the protected area every 3 to 5 years, or as part of regular reviews of management plans and operational plans. This assessment should not be seen as a one-time process, rather something that is built into the strategic planning and decision-making of the protected area. How often these iterations occur and the level of detail involved, maybe different depending on the governance structure of the protected area, but a discussion will be required to determine how to include climate risk into management plans.
