1st WORLD CONGRESS ON MARITIME HERITAGE 2019
“Connecting With the Past to Navigate the Future” Singapore • 13–15 March 2019 At the 2014 NMHS Annual Awards Dinner in New York City, Daniel J. Basta, recipient of the NMHS Distinguished Service Award, proposed the challenge that connecting the world’s shared maritime heritage could be used as a means to help navigate a sustainable future. After several years of coalition building and development, the 1st World Congress on Maritime Heritage is ready to take up the challenge. Maritime heritage is the history of human involvement with the oceans and coastal lands and waters—the history of seafaring, navies, ports and waterfront communities, immigration, fishing, the marine environment, the arts, and the law. The world we live in today is a legacy of our maritime heritage. Driven by the Consortium for International Maritime Heritage, the 1st World Congress will launch a coordinated effort, bringing together a diverse array of maritime constituent groups, institutions, and stakeholders from across the world, and providing a unique opportunity for all to form new partnerships towards achieving a common objective—securing a sustainable future through better understanding of our common maritime heritage. The 2019 Congress will gather in Singapore, which will be celebrating its 200th anniversary.
A Pressing Need Our world today is an interconnected global economy us in the same way. It will also serve to improve our underand, in many respects, an increasingly connected political, standing of how modern uses of the ocean, such as energy social, and cultural landscape. What is not well understood extraction and maritime transportation, play important roles is that our world is very much the result of the last few cen- in the lives of a global society. The 1st World Congress will turies of our collective mastering of the seas—a process that serve as a focal point for a wide array of groups, institutions, has resulted in the greatest mass migrations of human popu- and individuals to learn about their shared heritage. It provides lations in history, global commerce, exploitation of the oceans an opportunity to exchange experiences and cultural values to fuel the explosion of human populations, and an increased worldwide, to shed light on how we are all interconnected rate of climate change as a result of all this activity. These and how we accept the challenge to work towards a better developments have caused many around the world to ponder understanding and sustainability of our global economy. an uncertain future. The forces and drivers of change that Deliberations at the Congress will provide an additional bridged the seas and connected all cultures and economies venue for further working towards achieving Goal 14 of the still drive our world today, perhaps at an ever-increasing rate. Sustainable Development Goals, “the world’s best plan to Nevertheless, we are more cognizant than ever of the conse- build a better world for people and our planet by 2030,” quences of failing to adjust, as our actions continue to change adopted by the United Nations in 2015: Conserve and Susthe world around us. tainably Use the Oceans, Seas, and Marines Resources for The 1st World Congress on Maritime Heritage provides Sustainable Development. Ultimately, it will foster new inan unprecedented opportunity to re-discover our past through teractions and help new coalitions to be formed within the the lens of our shared maritime heritage and will help to shed wider maritime community to evolve better ways to cooperlight on how the factors that affected the past need not affect ate towards our shared purposes. Who Should Attend? The 1st Congress is designed to attract 300–500 international leaders and participants from diverse sectors including: • All elements of the maritime industries sector • Maritime museums and aquariums • Port cities and coastal regional planners
• Historians, archaeologists, geographers, economists, and other scholars who study the interaction between humans and the ocean
The Program A three-day program will combine plenary, thematic, regional and interactive sessions and consist of a wide range of speakers and panelists from diverse sectors. It also includes three evening functions, which will provide the ideal platform for networking. Details are posted on the World Congress website. For more information on the World Congress on Maritime Heritage and how to register, visit wcmh2019.com. 46
SEA HISTORY 165, WINTER 2018–19