The Opportunity of a Lifetime for Landscape Scale Conservation
November 23, 2021
To provide observations and information on the emerging fields of landscape scale conservation, heritage preservation, and sustainable community development.
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“Social value” is not a term that national park organizations in the United States, Canada and New Zealand have tended to use with much frequency, reserving it almost exclusively for discussions of the distant past, rather than for more recent and contemporary place attachments and community networks. How can social values or the “values of people” be better incorporated into national park management policies, such that agencies move beyond lip service and actually include various publics in meaninful decision-making processes.
This post is part of the “Sustainable Futures for Europe’s Heritage in Cultural Landscapes” project (HERCULES), which seeks to empower public and private actors to protect and sustainably manage cultural landscapes that possess significant cultural, socio-economic, historical, natural and archaeological value, at a local, national and Pan-European level. The blog serves as a digital platform, which seeks to highlight research, to engage practitioners from the field, to showcase best practices, and contribute to discussions.
Since at least the 1930s, the National Park Service has enjoyed a significant presence in urban areas. Yet, as the agency’s 2016 centennial approaches, the history of park service programs in cities can, at best, be viewed as a mixed legacy, with many stops and starts along the way. What can we learn from the past and what might the future hold for the newly announced NPS Urban Agenda?
The Blackstone River Valley in Massachusetts and Rhode Island has long been a hotbed of innovation from its earliest industrialization to experimentation in protected area management with the creation of a National Heritage Corridor in 1986. Recently, the conservation possibilities of the region have been re-imagined yet again. In 2014, Congress authorized a new park unit – the Blackstone River Valley National Historical Park. How might this latest change affect the ongoing story of the heritage corridor with more than three decades of working on the ground in communities throughout the valley?
One way to learn the stories behind the creation and subsequent management of National Park units, regions, and programs across the country is through reading their administrative histories. For decades, NPS has supported the research and writing of these valuable documents, but how are they actually used (if at all?) by both park staff and other interested individuals and groups?
“Social value” is not a term that national park organizations in the United States, Canada and New Zealand have tended to use with much frequency, reserving it almost exclusively for discussions of the distant past, rather than for more recent and contemporary place attachments and community networks. How can social values or the “values of people” be better incorporated into national park management policies, such that agencies move beyond lip service and actually include various publics in meaninful decision-making processes.
This post is part of the “Sustainable Futures for Europe’s Heritage in Cultural Landscapes” project (HERCULES), which seeks to empower public and private actors to protect and sustainably manage cultural landscapes that possess significant cultural, socio-economic, historical, natural and archaeological value, at a local, national and Pan-European level. The blog serves as a digital platform, which seeks to highlight research, to engage practitioners from the field, to showcase best practices, and contribute to discussions.
Since at least the 1930s, the National Park Service has enjoyed a significant presence in urban areas. Yet, as the agency’s 2016 centennial approaches, the history of park service programs in cities can, at best, be viewed as a mixed legacy, with many stops and starts along the way. What can we learn from the past and what might the future hold for the newly announced NPS Urban Agenda?
The Blackstone River Valley in Massachusetts and Rhode Island has long been a hotbed of innovation from its earliest industrialization to experimentation in protected area management with the creation of a National Heritage Corridor in 1986. Recently, the conservation possibilities of the region have been re-imagined yet again. In 2014, Congress authorized a new park unit – the Blackstone River Valley National Historical Park. How might this latest change affect the ongoing story of the heritage corridor with more than three decades of working on the ground in communities throughout the valley?
One way to learn the stories behind the creation and subsequent management of National Park units, regions, and programs across the country is through reading their administrative histories. For decades, NPS has supported the research and writing of these valuable documents, but how are they actually used (if at all?) by both park staff and other interested individuals and groups?