Cultural Parks: What Happened?
March 28, 2018
To provide observations and information on the emerging fields of landscape scale conservation, heritage preservation, and sustainable community development.
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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.
Watching the development of a national heritage area is a bit like observing the formation of a solar system. Partners large and small are attracted to the heritage area idea like planets around a sun and if the perceived benefits are powerful enough the gravitational force will bind them together around a unified vision. With the conservation movement’s interest in how to build effective large landscape networks examining how this actually happens on the ground might be productive. What lessons can we learn from the formation of the Washington Maritime National Heritage Area?
Please join the Living Landscape Observer on June 15, 2022 from 1:00pm to 1:45pm for a moderated discussion with Alan Spears, Senior Director of Cultural Resources in the Government Affairs department of the National Parks Conservation Association (NPCA) and Sara Capen, Executive Director of the Niagara Falls National Heritage Area. Register now.
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.
Watching the development of a national heritage area is a bit like observing the formation of a solar system. Partners large and small are attracted to the heritage area idea like planets around a sun and if the perceived benefits are powerful enough the gravitational force will bind them together around a unified vision. With the conservation movement’s interest in how to build effective large landscape networks examining how this actually happens on the ground might be productive. What lessons can we learn from the formation of the Washington Maritime National Heritage Area?
Please join the Living Landscape Observer on June 15, 2022 from 1:00pm to 1:45pm for a moderated discussion with Alan Spears, Senior Director of Cultural Resources in the Government Affairs department of the National Parks Conservation Association (NPCA) and Sara Capen, Executive Director of the Niagara Falls National Heritage Area. Register now.