Not many people can say that one of the Seven Wonders of the World is their office. But for Taher Farhat, our Petra Climate Custodian, this ancient sandstone city is more than a workplace, it’s home.

Taher’s Roots in Petra Run Deep

Born and raised in the Petra community, Taher was the lucky son of an archaeologist who worked on site. Some of his earliest memories were exploring its intricately carved buildings and learning the stories behind it. One experience in particular cemented his lifelong commitment to Petra: At eleven years old, he joined his father in a newly discovered tomb below the Treasury. “That’s when I fell in love with it,” he recalls. “I knew I wanted to do something related to heritage.”

That spark led him to study heritage management and conservation at university. But unlike his father’s focus on the monumental and visible, Taher was drawn to the  overlooked intangible heritage of Petra.

Spotlighting Petra's Invisible Stories

“Petra is an archaeological site,” Taher shared. “All the researchers, the people who wrote about the site, and who visited the site, they only focused on the archaeological elements, the things you can see and feel. But the intangible heritage is something really rich in the region and nobody talks about it—the customs, what people used to think, what they ate, their beliefs.” 

‍The intangible heritage is something really rich in the region and nobody talks about it—the customs, what people used to think, what they ate, their beliefs. 

Thankfully, Taher is talking about it. For his masters thesis, Taher spent time with local elders, listening to stories of customs that hadn’t been practiced since the 70s-80s. “There were specific traditions for specific things—food, bathing, when someone had a baby, when they would buy a new horse.” 

While the customs varied, one concept connected them all: they were done with good will. This throughline stuck with Taher and motivates his own heartfelt work to safeguard the site. 

Ancient Inspiration for Today's Challenges

Today, as Petra faces the intensifying impacts of changing climate, Taher is drawing on both the tangible and intangible heritage of the past to help protect it. For example, as part of his work with Preserving Legacies, Taher is leading efforts to map and rebuild Petra’s terraces, a lesser known water management feature the Nabateans used to slow down water and manage flash floods alongside their more famous network of canals and cisterns. “They had the same problem we have now,” he reflected, “but they knew how to be with it better.”

Heritage Connections across Continents

Terraces as a tool for water management are not unique to Petra and through his experience with other Preserving Legacies custodians, Taher found inspiration in an unlikely place: the lIfuago rice terraces of the Philippines. In 2021, Taher traveled to a risk assessment workshop that his colleague Marlon Martin was holding for the Ifugao community. He described the lush green rice terraces as a stark contrast to Petra’s dry yellow desert landscape, yet he found similarities. “In the rice terraces in the Philippines, when you see it from a distance it’s totally different but it’s similar to what we have. Although they are for agriculture purposes, it’s actually the same mechanism and idea.”

Advice: Just Know It‍

When asked what someone can do to support cultural heritage in their own community, Taher’s advice is simple: Know about it. “There are 40,000 people living around Petra. Some young people know there’s a site but don’t know about the history. At the beginning, know about your site — more than someone else outside of your community. Hear the stories, the struggle of people who created the site, or made an amazing facade, just think about it, you know they are human like us but they did extraordinary things, they were artists. Just thinking about it you will instantly feel the importance of the site. Just knowing about it at the beginning is important enough”

For Taher, knowing is just the beginning—and when paired with goodwill, it becomes a powerful force for sustaining the deep relationship between heritage, climate, and community.