Understanding Extreme Geohazards: The Science of the Disaster Risk Management Cycle

European Science Foundation Conference
November 28 to December 1, 2011, Sant Feliu de Guixols, Spain

Session 10 “Learning from disasters: science support for recovery and preparedness&rdquo

Discussion: “Obstacles for disaster reduction through informed recovery”

Mona Khaleghy

Here are some obstacles we think for disaster reduction through informed recovery:

  1. There is no spatial alternatives for relocating the residents of some areas. For example a Japanese fishing village can not be moved away due to their occupation and living style, therefore, there is no choice of hazard reduction there.
  2. The hazard assessment methods are generally inadequate. Not only the magnitude-frequency of hazard needs reassessments but also careful hazard existence inspections required.
  3. There are documentation issues for consequences of hazard events. There are normally few sources of documented losses and damages due to disasters specially in less developed areas.

Anna VIGORITO

Obstacles for disaster reduction through informed recovery relating to (tangible and intangible) cultural heritage:

  1. In case of natural disasters and catastrophes, the international community favours the protection of human life and health (providing food, giving shelter to civil population, etc.); tangible cultural heritage (e.g., monuments, buildings, archaeological and urban sites of artistic or historic interest, etc.) receives the grant of economic resources and of technical interventions only in a supplementary way. This choice is undoubtedly right, but it doesn’t consider the important role played by the safeguard of cultural heritage both in the formation of human personalities and in the protection of human dignity. That role is also stressed by important international agreements on human rights (UN Pact on civil and political rights of 1966, UN Pact on economic, social and cultural rights of 1966, Universal Declaration on Human Rights of 1948).
  2. As for the intangible cultural heritage (i.e., the set of traditional practices and rituals that characterize the lifestyle of a community), it exists -for example- an important attachment of indigenous peoples to their lands of origin; consequently, the recovering of the damaged site, where forces local residents to emigrate and to disperse, could affect the conservation and transmission to future generations of important elements of indigenous cultural identity. Furthermore, according to the Inter-American Court of Human Rights jurisprudence, the impossibility for indigenous peoples to live on their land of origin -following a specific lifestyle and practising some religious rites- amount to a gross violation of human rights.

In the two foregoing hypothesis, how can we reconcile the opposite interests?