New Monuments, Old Debates
July 29, 2015
To provide observations and information on the emerging fields of landscape scale conservation, heritage preservation, and sustainable community development.
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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?
Right on time for the bicentennial of Fredrick Law Olmsted Sr.’s birth comes Olmsted and Yosemite: Civil War. Abolition, and the National Park Idea by Rolf
The need for a closer partnership between conservation and historic preservation was one of the motivations for the creation of the Living Landscape Observer (LLO). The LLO reports on large landscape conservation, an approach that blends ingredients of land conservation, historic preservation, and sustainable community development.
In Pennsylvania over 2,500 state historical markers, some dating back over one hundred years, dot the roadside. A recent system wide review of the marker’s text brought controversy, but also a thoughtful analysis of the content of those markers that attempt to interpret Indigenous and African American histories. Timely thoughts as public history agencies struggle to do the right thing.
This is an exceptional time when ambitions for landscape scale conservation have come together with increased federal funding and supportive national policies. However, it is not time to take a victory lap. Now is the time to rise to the challenge of matching money, projects and partners to take advantage of these exceptional opportunities. The time has come to put into action at scale all the strategies developed by the collaborative conservation approach.
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?
Right on time for the bicentennial of Fredrick Law Olmsted Sr.’s birth comes Olmsted and Yosemite: Civil War. Abolition, and the National Park Idea by Rolf
The need for a closer partnership between conservation and historic preservation was one of the motivations for the creation of the Living Landscape Observer (LLO). The LLO reports on large landscape conservation, an approach that blends ingredients of land conservation, historic preservation, and sustainable community development.
In Pennsylvania over 2,500 state historical markers, some dating back over one hundred years, dot the roadside. A recent system wide review of the marker’s text brought controversy, but also a thoughtful analysis of the content of those markers that attempt to interpret Indigenous and African American histories. Timely thoughts as public history agencies struggle to do the right thing.
This is an exceptional time when ambitions for landscape scale conservation have come together with increased federal funding and supportive national policies. However, it is not time to take a victory lap. Now is the time to rise to the challenge of matching money, projects and partners to take advantage of these exceptional opportunities. The time has come to put into action at scale all the strategies developed by the collaborative conservation approach.