| Description: |
The Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction (SFDRR) and the New Urban Agenda (UN-Habitat III) emphasize the importance of safeguarding the cultural heritage through resilience to diverse hazards, but also recognizes its active role in stimulating participation and responsibility to promote sustainable urban development. One of the challenges to promote the resilience of cultural heritage sites relates to how to increase the awareness of both climate and cultural heritage communities for preventing risks. This paper aims to address some challenges to promote resilience of art cities in Brazil. Through funding provided by São Paulo Research Foundation (Fapesp), the study was based on literature reviews, documentary research, and field work in São Luiz do Paraitinga city, Brazil, from January 2010 to June 2013. Listed as cultural heritage since 1982, the city experienced an extreme flood in January 4, 2010, when the Paraitinga River reached 12 meters above its normal level, submerging the colonial historical center held catholic churches and two hundred houses build in the 19th century. Nobody died during floods, thanks to the work of local rafting teams and volunteers. But how do to enhance the long-term resilience and intergenerational capacities of disaster preparedness? In Brazil, there is an urgent need to build an approach to foster resilience and early warning systems in cities that have intangible and tangible cultural heritage assets. Brazil has 5,570 municipalities, but only 957 of them have risk mapping and are monitored by the National Early Warning and Monitoring Center of Disasters (Cemaden). Among the municipalities monitored by Cemaden, 127 towns are listed by National Heritage Institute (Iphan), containing 830 (66%) of the 1257 tangible cultural assets in Brazil. |