The Management of Star Carr

Abstract Recent archaeological evaluations at Star Carr have indicated that the formerly waterlogged deposits are approaching a chemical and hydrological crisis point. Star Carr and its wider landscape context also face additional conservation pressures from the extraction of aggregates, the expansion of urban Scarborough (and the concomitant changes in hydrology), intensive arable use and landscape change designed to create wetland landscapes. The paper presented by English Heritage in Cambridge considered the progress that had been made with regard to the protection and management of the site since the first seminar in York in 2008 and outlined the methodology being adopted to oversee its conservation management. The philosophical underpinning to the management of the Star Carr site is based on the English Heritage Conservation Principles (English Heritage 2008) which requires that the different values attached to a place are expressed and amalgamated into an agreed statement of its cultural significance. Of particular importance at Star Carr is its 'evidential value', its potential to yield evidence about past human activity. Once this value is lost the site will lose a key part of its significance, so how can this value be sustained?