The Challenge of Conserving Cultural Resources on a Landscape Scale
September 29, 2018
To provide observations and information on the emerging fields of landscape scale conservation, heritage preservation, and sustainable community development.
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Recent writing and research shows the contribution that rural and traditional working landscapes can make to landscape resilience, sustainability, and ecological diversity, which in turn can play a part in combatting climate change. The scale of these landscapes has also been a driver of the need to integrate the management of nature and culture. What has been less discussed are the contributions of cultural values to the conservation of rural landscapes. For example, the World Heritage criteria that most directly applies to working landscapes states that cultural landscapes are sites where the interaction between people and their environment is considered to be of outstanding universal value. A closer examination of the people part of the equation is warranted.
The UN Biodiversity Conference 2022 in Montreal from 7-19 December under the theme “Ecological Civilization: Building a Shared Future for All Life on Earth”, ushered in new initiatives to put the linkage of natural and cultural diversity at the heart of implementation. The main objective was for governments to adopt the post-2020 global biodiversity framework. This framework makes many references to culture, and the diversity of values and world views that link people and nature, stating that it will place biodiversity “at the heart of the sustainable development agenda, recognizing the important linkages between biological and cultural diversity
Goaded by continuing floods after the disastrous bushfires over summer 2020, Australians finally voted for climate change and a new federal government on 21 May 2022. The political landscape changed radically with promises immediate action on climate change and the environment after nine years government neglect.
Historic African American cemeteries are receiving long-overdue attention for their significance in the history of African American life. Unfortunately, a common misconception persists that cemeteries are not eligible for the National Register. Virginia has demonstrated that numerous types of historic cemeteries can be listed in the National Register. These include sites that are significant for their landscape design and funerary markers to those with unmarked graves that tell a story of historic neglect and erasure.
Across the country African American cemeteries have been abandoned, rediscovered, and identified as in need of preservation. Behind each of these individual stories is a complex hidden landscape created by enslavement, segregation, exclusion, and economic hardship. It is also a geography that reveals patterns of migration, forgotten settlements, demographic shifts as well as the strength and resilience of African American communities.
Recent writing and research shows the contribution that rural and traditional working landscapes can make to landscape resilience, sustainability, and ecological diversity, which in turn can play a part in combatting climate change. The scale of these landscapes has also been a driver of the need to integrate the management of nature and culture. What has been less discussed are the contributions of cultural values to the conservation of rural landscapes. For example, the World Heritage criteria that most directly applies to working landscapes states that cultural landscapes are sites where the interaction between people and their environment is considered to be of outstanding universal value. A closer examination of the people part of the equation is warranted.
The UN Biodiversity Conference 2022 in Montreal from 7-19 December under the theme “Ecological Civilization: Building a Shared Future for All Life on Earth”, ushered in new initiatives to put the linkage of natural and cultural diversity at the heart of implementation. The main objective was for governments to adopt the post-2020 global biodiversity framework. This framework makes many references to culture, and the diversity of values and world views that link people and nature, stating that it will place biodiversity “at the heart of the sustainable development agenda, recognizing the important linkages between biological and cultural diversity
Goaded by continuing floods after the disastrous bushfires over summer 2020, Australians finally voted for climate change and a new federal government on 21 May 2022. The political landscape changed radically with promises immediate action on climate change and the environment after nine years government neglect.
Historic African American cemeteries are receiving long-overdue attention for their significance in the history of African American life. Unfortunately, a common misconception persists that cemeteries are not eligible for the National Register. Virginia has demonstrated that numerous types of historic cemeteries can be listed in the National Register. These include sites that are significant for their landscape design and funerary markers to those with unmarked graves that tell a story of historic neglect and erasure.
Across the country African American cemeteries have been abandoned, rediscovered, and identified as in need of preservation. Behind each of these individual stories is a complex hidden landscape created by enslavement, segregation, exclusion, and economic hardship. It is also a geography that reveals patterns of migration, forgotten settlements, demographic shifts as well as the strength and resilience of African American communities.