Culturally Differentiated Paths Towards the Conservation of the Paleontological Heritage at Araripe (NE Brazil) and Arouca (N Portugal) UNESCO Global Geoparks

Fossils are polysemic entities that attract people for very different reasons ranging from scientific to recreational ones. They can therefore display different heritage contents according to the meanings assigned by different social groups. This may endanger the integrity of the fossil record that grounds the development of paleontology (and related sciences) and may affect the enrichment of the paleontological heritage of the Earth. But the source of the paleontological heritage is not limited to academic activities that are trained to put into action top-bottom methods of inventorying, assessment, conservation, valuing, and monitoring procedures to fossils and fossil sites. Other culturally differentiated initiatives of geoconservation, whose meaning is inextricably rooted in both cultural and scientific dimensions, are important contributors to enlarge the data on paleontological heritage. Even among mining activities, normally seen as a big threat to geoconservation, it is possible to recognize examples of distinct practices of preservation and valuation enhancing of the paleontological heritage according to a bottom-up approach where fossils display heritage contents quite far from the contents usually assigned by the experts. The case of two UNESCO Global Geoparks (Araripe, NE Brazil; and Arouca, N Portugal) here presented enables to feature a new approach to the concept of paleontological heritage as a set of natural objects, resulting of culturally differentiated initiatives of geoconservation, whose significance is strongly linked to both cultural and scientific dimensions.

Automated summary

Fossils are polysemic entities that attract people for different reasons. The integrity of the fossil record is crucial for the development of paleontology and the enrichment of the paleontological heritage. Cultural initiatives of geoconservation contribute to expanding the data on paleontological heritage, along with academic activities.