Moroccan Caves and their Implications in the Scientific, Geoeducational and Geotouristic Programs through Speleological Activities
Session Type
Plenary Session: Sustainbility and Community
Start Date
18-8-2020 11:00 AM
Description
Morocco is world-wide known for its great geodiversity, notably its rich and abundant karstic occurrences. Although, abundance of carbonate deposits gives rise to a very large number of caves, avens and underground cavities endowed with remarkable speleothems and concretions, it still rarely studied and assessed as geo-heritage component. Moreover, the Moroccan caves yielded so far unexpected human and animal remains, which contributed to the understanding of the origin and evolution of our species and their paleoecosystems. The most relevant examples are the unearthed oldest skull of Homo sapiens from Jbel Irhoud Cave (Hublin et al., 2017), and the ancient human DNA recovered from the Pigeons cave, near Taforalt (van de Loosdrecht et al., 2018). Beside the scientific significance, the karst has cultural and historical magnitude that is reaching out to communities according to their own habits and traditions. However, the combined action of natural triggers and anthropogenic harms weakens the underground environment and threatens the integrity of karst in all its aspects. Accordingly, the use of caving activities and their adjustment to the target group allows a scientific outreach and a direct awareness-building on the importance of the underground geoheritage. This contribution aims to present and highlight examples of scientific, educational and touristic initiatives carried out by civil society bodies to advocate for the protection of the karst geoheritage in Morocco. It will also discuss the different future outlook for the conservation of these natural resources and their implication through the process of sustainable socio-economic development of the local community
Recommended Citation
Younes Arrad,, Taha Presenter, "Moroccan Caves and their Implications in the Scientific, Geoeducational and Geotouristic Programs through Speleological Activities" (2020). Conservation of Fragile Karst Resources Proceedings. 10.
https://digitalcommons.wku.edu/con_karst_res_proc/con_karst_pro_2020/day_one/10
Moroccan Caves and their Implications in the Scientific, Geoeducational and Geotouristic Programs through Speleological Activities
Morocco is world-wide known for its great geodiversity, notably its rich and abundant karstic occurrences. Although, abundance of carbonate deposits gives rise to a very large number of caves, avens and underground cavities endowed with remarkable speleothems and concretions, it still rarely studied and assessed as geo-heritage component. Moreover, the Moroccan caves yielded so far unexpected human and animal remains, which contributed to the understanding of the origin and evolution of our species and their paleoecosystems. The most relevant examples are the unearthed oldest skull of Homo sapiens from Jbel Irhoud Cave (Hublin et al., 2017), and the ancient human DNA recovered from the Pigeons cave, near Taforalt (van de Loosdrecht et al., 2018). Beside the scientific significance, the karst has cultural and historical magnitude that is reaching out to communities according to their own habits and traditions. However, the combined action of natural triggers and anthropogenic harms weakens the underground environment and threatens the integrity of karst in all its aspects. Accordingly, the use of caving activities and their adjustment to the target group allows a scientific outreach and a direct awareness-building on the importance of the underground geoheritage. This contribution aims to present and highlight examples of scientific, educational and touristic initiatives carried out by civil society bodies to advocate for the protection of the karst geoheritage in Morocco. It will also discuss the different future outlook for the conservation of these natural resources and their implication through the process of sustainable socio-economic development of the local community
Comments
This presentation was part of the Plenary Session: Sustainability and Community. Sustainability and Community Mangers and researchers from across the globe shared perspectives on the strengths and challenges to man-aging karst resources and the UNESCO programs de-signed to protect these environments. Topics covered a broad spectrum including collaborative management, efficacy of UNESCO protected area designations in safeguarding cave and karst geogheritage, geotourism roles and potentials, public perception, use of tradi-tional knowledge to guide karst management, and ge-oeducational and geotouristic opportunities offered by speleological activities.