World Monuments Fund is seeking proposals from historic places of cultivation to form part of Cultivating Resilience, a new program aiming to increase the adaptive capacities of heritage green spaces in the face of a changing climate.

World Monuments Fund (WMF) is now accepting proposals for sites looking to strengthen their resilience to climate change, share their knowledge, and plan for the future through the Cultivating Resilience program.

Cultivating Resilience is a three- to five-year program with a global reach and a diversity of site types, statuses, threats, and uses. Whether you call them “gardens,” “managed landscapes,” “cultural landscapes,” or “designed landscapes,” sites where humans interact with, care for, and protect plants can serve a dual purpose. They can act as treasured places where traditional knowledge and practices about strengthening climate resilience are passed down, but they can also be laboratories for trialing new and innovative practices that will help future generations adapt to a changing world.

Building on years of work at the nexus of climate and culture, Cultivating Resilience joins WMF's suite of climate resilience and adaptation initiatives. This program intends to use cultural heritage as a key tool to help the communities associated with historic places adapt to and mitigate the impacts of climate change.

WMF welcomes applications for this exciting new program to safeguard green spaces large and small.

 

WMF is working with the École Nationale Supérieure de Paysage (ENSP) to create a center of excellence for climate-resilient gardening at the Potager du Roi, the former kitchen garden of the French royal family at the Palace of Versailles.

Selection Criteria

To participate in this program, sites must meet the following criteria:

  • Be in active use by and of value to local communities
  • Demonstrate that their climate-resilient knowledge or practices are under threat
  • Explain how increasing their resilience can also address global challenges like land degradation or the biodiversity crisis

Furthermore, sites must:

  • Demonstrate a clear conservation or cultivation issue that WMF support can address
  • Lack a current climate risk assessment and/or climate adaptation plan
  • Demonstrate the potential and willingness to disseminate knowledge, share best practices, and build capacity in their own region

Selected sites will receive:

  • WMF support to address their specific conservation or cultivation issues
  • Assistance with site-specific climate risk assessments and climate adaptation planning
  • Membership in the international WMF Cultivating Resilience network
  • Access to information from Cultivating Resilience partners across the globe
  • Funds to share knowledge and build the adaptive capacities of other heritage green spaces in their region

Environmental sites and affiliated custodians should fill out the short application HERE. The deadline for applications is July 31st, 2024 at midnight, 12:00am EST. Applications will be reviewed by an independent scientific committee, and successful sites will be notified by August 31st, 2024.

Questions can be directed to gardens@wmf.org.

Apply Now

World Monuments Fund's Cultivating Resilience Program has been made possible by support from The Gerard B. Lambert Foundation.

Image: Potager du Roi by Nora Jaccaud. WMF is working with the École Nationale Supérieure de Paysage (ENSP) to create a center of excellence for climate-resilient gardening at the Potager du Roi, the former kitchen garden of the French royal family at the Palace of Versailles.