The Community Conservation Lab (CCL) envisions a world where cultural landscapes are valued and maintained through empowered communities. Through training and capacity building, CCL aims to protect and enhance cultural heritage while generating revenue opportunities. It strives to be a leading institute in skill development, design innovation, and marketing, enabling communities in the Hindu Kush Himalaya region and beyond to adapt traditional crafts and practices to modern contexts. Through collaborative conservation efforts, CCL seeks to balance human, ecological, and cultural relationships, ensuring the vitality of heritage for future generations.

The Community Conservation Lab (CCL) is an institute for training and capacity building, dedicated to the preservation and promotion of cultural landscapes. Based in the Hindu Kush Himalaya region, CCL offers specialized training in skill development, design innovation, and marketing, empowering communities to preserve traditional crafts and practices while adapting to modern needs. Through this, it supports the conservation of community heritage, including buildings, objects, practices, and stories.

Artefact: CCL's work spans material and immaterial heritage in its ecological context. Artefacts include practices, stories, techniques, skills, buildings, crafts, and objects. Conservation involves preserving tangible items like artworks or structures and safeguarding intangible heritage such as traditions. Our approach considers artefacts' relationships with human, non-human, and spiritual entities while acknowledging their role in natural ecology.

Practice: CCL collaborates with local communities and landscapes throughout the conservation process, from selecting artefacts to determining methods like documentation, condition assessment, and upkeep. By integrating scientific and traditional techniques, we encourage mutual learning about materials, risks, and sustainability.

Knowledge: CCL values diverse knowledge systems, blending scientific inquiry with local wisdom. Observational, experimental, empirical, and experiential methods enrich our understanding of artefacts, ensuring a holistic approach to conservation that respects global standards and local contexts.

Training and Capacity Building

• Organize workshops and courses for local communities focusing on traditional crafts, design innovation, and marketing.
• Develop certification programs in skill development to support professional growth in heritage-related fields.

Heritage Conversation Projects

• Identify and document cultural heritage sites and practices in the Hindu Kush Himalaya region.
• Implement conservation projects that integrate traditional and modern techniques to preserve both tangible and intangible heritage.

Revenue Generations initiatives

• Support communities in creating marketable products derived from traditional crafts.
• Develop partnerships with local and global markets to promote sustainably crafted goods.

Community Engagement

• Facilitate collaborative efforts between local communities, experts, and stakeholders for inclusive heritage conservation.
• Promote awareness campaigns about the importance of cultural landscapes and their preservation.

Knowledge Developement and Sharing

• Conduct research to integrate scientific and traditional knowledge systems for effective conservation strategies.
• Publish findings and develop educational materials to share best practices in heritage preservation.

sustainability and Impact Assessment

• Monitor the environmental, cultural, and economic impacts of conservation projects.
• Adjust strategies based on community feedback and measurable outcomes.

The Community Conservation Lab's annual objectives include organizing training workshops in traditional crafts, design, and marketing to empower communities and enhance their skills. Conservation projects focus on documenting and preserving cultural heritage using both traditional and modern techniques. Revenue generation initiatives aim to support communities in creating marketable products and forming partnerships with global markets. Collaborative efforts with communities and stakeholders promote inclusive heritage preservation, while awareness campaigns highlight the value of cultural landscapes. CCL integrates scientific and traditional knowledge through research and publications, sharing best practices in conservation. Impact assessments ensure sustainability by measuring the environmental, cultural, and economic effects of its projects.

Location: Kharmang, Yasin, Laspur

Supported by: British Council's Cultural Protection Fund

Year: 2024 - 2025

Related in Archive: Iwan, Pinjra, Khatam, Shu, Loom, Painting, Sutun

Asset: Building, Practice, Technique, Object, Story

Material: Mud, Wood, Fibre

This project focuses on the preservation of endangered heritage assets that evoke the historical 'Silk Roads' exchanges between HKH, Central Asia and Tibet. These assets are not only of great historical significance but also bear immense cultural importance for local communities representing their identity and rich heritage once thriving in the era of Silk route exchanges. The project's scope encompasses unique heritage assets in three valleys within the HKH region.

Location: Kharmang, Yasin, Kalash

Supported by: AHRC and DCMS UK

Year: 2024 - 2025

Related in Archive: Various

Asset: Story, Building, Practice

Material: Mud, Stone, Fibre, Wood

Fragile heritage ecologies explore how heritage is made, lost, sustained and adapted in landscapes that are shifting and transforming due to the effects of climate change. We try to understand how communities experience change and loss of heritage in multiple ways; the material loss of vernacular homes, significant places within the landscape and the immaterial loss of practices of everyday life, cultural practices and engagement with the landscape.

Location: Gilgit, Hunza, Gojal, Chun Alai, Khorog, GBAO

Supported by: UKRI, GCRF

Year: 2020 - 2022

Related in Archive: Explore archive

Related Material: Explore in archive

For a long time now, mountain communities have been facing great challenges with regards to access, mobility and extreme weather conditions which has largely defined their cultural, social and economic lives. However, with the growing hazardous effects of climate change and recent surge of infrastructural development in Northern Pakistan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan, mountain communities are grappling with a range of unprecedented challenges that pose a threat to their natural and cultural landscapes thereby increasing their vulnerabilities.

Location: Sermik, Skardu, Baltistan

Supported by: Major Award, Barakat Trust, UK

Year: 2023

Related in Archive: Thami mosque

Assets: Building

Material: Mud, Wood

The project aimed to highlight the significance of Islamic art and architecture by documenting the architectural form and decorative patterns used in Thami Mosque in Sermik village of Kharmang district. It provided recommendations for prioritized actions necessary to preserve the mosque.

Location: Brep, Yarkhun, Upper Chitral

Supported by: Local elders

Year: 2022

Material: Mud, Wood

Due to mudslides triggered by prolonged monsoons in 2022, the typically arid Brep village faced significant adversity, resulting in the destruction of numerous houses and displacement of families. In response to this crisis, our team visited the affected area to assess the damage and develop an environmentally sustainable rehabilitation strategy by designing a structure using local materials and techniques.

Location: Yasin, Yarkhun, Kharmang

Supported by: Laajverd; LVS

Year: 2022 - 2023

Related in Archive: Mud plaster

Asset: Practice, Technique

Material: Mud

This project is an ongoing longitudinal research in the study of soil and its value for mountain communities in the HKH region. The mountain communities offer a unique earthen heritage that developed in correspondence with the climate, geology and landscape entwined in spiritual inclinations and religious beliefs.

Location: Yarkhun, Kharmang, Shigar, Ganche

Supported by: Laajverd; LVS

Year: 2022 - 2023

Related in Archive: Waqa Sachin, Ramshing, Sanjh, Shanjh

Asset: Building, Technique

Material: Wood

Timber Tales is an in-depth exploration into the rich world of wood in the HKH (Hindu Kush Himalaya) region, its varied uses and types within the daily practices of local communities. In Northern Pakistan, timber and forests face a myriad of threats, placing vulnerable communities and their dwellings at significant risk.

Location: Various, Baltistan and Chitral

Supported by: Laajverd; LVS; various

Year: 2018- 2023

Related Asset: Practice, Technique

Material: Mud

Each year, the lab conducts experiments in practices of making in order to document, conserve and promote handmade products. Through a Co-production model, the making lab brings together industry experts and craftspeople to develop products and test their viability in the local and global markets.