La gestión e investigación del patrimonio cultural subacuático en el Caribe colombiano (2001-2023)

Colombia has a significant potential of Underwater Cultural Heritage (UCH) assets in its maritime, river and lake areas, given the long tradition of human activity from Pre-Hispanic times to the Colonial, Republican and Industrial Periods. These cultural resources located on the coasts, in shallow and deep waters, of different nature and with diverse trajectories related to their conservation processes, have contributed to the conformation of knowledge and representations that impact the way in which we understand, protect and appropriate our environment. Thus, the UCH is today a public asset, a social right, a potential source of identity strengthening and a factor of opportunities to develop the fields of education, culture, science, infrastructure and tourism in the regions. In this approach, the UCH takes a special importance for the fulfillment of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) set by UNESCO with a view to the 2030 sustainable development agenda; under this premise, UCH management in Colombia, particularly in the Caribbean, has been developing gradually since 2001. In the last two decades, the axes related to institutional strengthening, research, training and dissemination aimed at protecting the cultural resources that lie in the aquatic depths of national water bodies have been consolidated. However, despite the growing interest and development of the various disciplines related to the study and protection of submerged cultural contexts, there are still many challenges to overcome, among which are the social appropriation of this knowledge, the need to avoid plundering activities and mitigation strategies for the effects of climate change on the UCH. In the Colombian context, the management of this heritage was marked by three stages between 2001-2013, 2013-2019 and 2019-2023, which generate the actions coming from state institutions, academic entities and civil society actors. In this order of ideas, the objective of this article is to propose a review and analytical reflection of the development of interdisciplinary management and research of the UCH in the Colombian Caribbean, evidencing the progress related to the development of methodological proposals for the study of submerged archaeological assets and contexts, the consolidation of regulations, the implementation of protection and monitoring systems, the identification of the effects of climate change, the integration of cultural resources into coastal marine planning, the develop