Sunken Treasures? Rising Waters and Historic Preservation, with Rodney Rowland

In this week’s episode, host Kristin Hayes talks with Rodney Rowland, the director of facilities and environmental sustainability at Strawbery Banke Museum in Portsmouth, New Hampshire. As his job title indicates, one of Rowland’s main responsibilities at the museum is to focus on environmental sustainability. He’s helping to implement a proactive adaptation strategy for the facilities at Strawbery Banke, which is rich in history and uniquely tied to its physical location, as the nine-acre living-history museum contends with the risks posed by climate change. Rowland and Hayes discuss the perils of sea level rise in historic preservation, and how institutions that face this problem (ranging from the Smithsonian museum and research complex in Washington, DC; to the Maritime Museum in Jakarta, Indonesia; to Strawbery Banke in New Hampshire) are making plans to safeguard their treasures. References and recommendations: “Saving History with Sandbags: Climate Change Threatens the Smithsonian” by Christopher Flavelle; https://www.nytimes.com/2021/11/25/climate/smithsonian-museum-flooding.html Strawbery Banke Museum in Portsmouth, New Hampshire; https://www.strawberybanke.org/ “White Pine: American History and the Tree that Made a Nation” by Andrew Vietze; https://rowman.com/ISBN/9781493009077/White-Pine-American-History-and-the-Tree-that-Made-a-Nation