Anthropogenic Landscapes: The Idea of PLACES
September 30, 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?
The origin story of the landscape scale conservation movement has yet to be told. However, in the United States, there has been a long tradition of managing fish and wildlife habitat with the understanding that species preservation required the conservation of wider ecosystems. Today the movement has received reinforcement from the nonprofit sector organizations such as the Network for Landscape Conservation.
Bills designating new National Heritage Areas have been introduced for several Congressional sessions, but nothing happened. That is until this year, when with surprising speed and overwhelming majorities, the Senate and House passed the Natural Resources Management Act. This bill is already being celebrated and rightly so for permanently reauthorizing the Land and Water Conservation Fund,creating three new national monuments, expanding park boundaries and so on. What has been less discussed in the over 600 pages of this legislation is the designation of six new National Heritage Areas.
On November 13-14, 2018 US ICOMOS welcomed experts from 15 countries across six continents to a gathering at the Presidio in San Francisco. Titled Forward Together: Effective Conservation in a Changing World, the goal of the symposium was to share a range of ideas on how to integrate culture and nature and to explore ways to shape cultural and natural heritage for long-lasting conservation. Building on earlier international nature/culture journeys, the focus was taking action on the ground.
October, 2018, marks the 50th anniversary of two remarkable federal laws: the National Trails System and Wild and Scenic Rivers Acts. Both laws set up ways that the federal government can assist in protecting and operating “long, skinny corridors” for recreation and heritage resource preservation. The key to the success of these corridors across the landscape and along our waterways has always been partnerships. Federal agencies working with private citizens and dedicated volunteers, have created irreplaceable links to our cultural and natural heritage.
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?
The origin story of the landscape scale conservation movement has yet to be told. However, in the United States, there has been a long tradition of managing fish and wildlife habitat with the understanding that species preservation required the conservation of wider ecosystems. Today the movement has received reinforcement from the nonprofit sector organizations such as the Network for Landscape Conservation.
Bills designating new National Heritage Areas have been introduced for several Congressional sessions, but nothing happened. That is until this year, when with surprising speed and overwhelming majorities, the Senate and House passed the Natural Resources Management Act. This bill is already being celebrated and rightly so for permanently reauthorizing the Land and Water Conservation Fund,creating three new national monuments, expanding park boundaries and so on. What has been less discussed in the over 600 pages of this legislation is the designation of six new National Heritage Areas.
On November 13-14, 2018 US ICOMOS welcomed experts from 15 countries across six continents to a gathering at the Presidio in San Francisco. Titled Forward Together: Effective Conservation in a Changing World, the goal of the symposium was to share a range of ideas on how to integrate culture and nature and to explore ways to shape cultural and natural heritage for long-lasting conservation. Building on earlier international nature/culture journeys, the focus was taking action on the ground.
October, 2018, marks the 50th anniversary of two remarkable federal laws: the National Trails System and Wild and Scenic Rivers Acts. Both laws set up ways that the federal government can assist in protecting and operating “long, skinny corridors” for recreation and heritage resource preservation. The key to the success of these corridors across the landscape and along our waterways has always been partnerships. Federal agencies working with private citizens and dedicated volunteers, have created irreplaceable links to our cultural and natural heritage.