The recently designated Maritime Washington National Heritage Area (NHA) is an exciting addition to the NHA program. Its boundaries are the saltwater coastlines of 14 counties in Washington State or roughly 3,000 miles of shoreline .25 mile from the mean high water mark. What opportunities and challenges are present in an effort so clearly focused on water and maritime landscapes?

As the introduction to the Principles Concerning Rural Landscapes as Heritage recognizes, these landscapes are a vital component of the heritage of humanity. While they are the most common type of  continuing cultural landscapes, they are also some of the most  diverse representing a  wide variety of cultures and cultural tradition.  For this reason, one of the important implementing actions in […]

For many good reasons such as climate change resilience, wild life corridor management, and cultural connectivity working on a landscape scale is something the Living Landscape Observer supports. However, many questions have been raised about Secretary Zinke 2018 announcement that the Department of the Interior (DOI) would be managed as 12 Unified Regions to enable bureaus within DOI to conduct business more effectively and efficiently.

The ‘Principles Concerning Rural Landscapes as Heritage’ (ICOMOS 2017) after defining rural landscapes also briefly develop themes relating to threats, challenges, benefits, and sustainability for rural landscapes from a cultural heritage point of view for today’s society. These challenges have been examined by scholars, scientific and cultural associations and public administrations, both at international and local levels and you will probably be aware of many of these issues.