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San Antonio Missions: Learning from the World Heritage Experience

On October 17, 2015 dignitaries from around the country gathered to celebrate the inscription of the San Antonio Missions as the 23rd World Heritage Site in the Untied States (US) and the first in Texas. The San Antonio Missions are a group of five frontier mission complexes situated along an over seven mile stretch of the San Antonio RiverBehind the well-deserved World Heritage hoopla and the carefully crafted statement of the property’s Outstanding Universal Value, there is more than a decade of hard work. As interested in World Heritage recognition grows in the country and around the globe, what can we learn from the hard won experience of the San Antonio Missions?

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The 2016 Federal Budget: How did Large Landscapes Fare?

After months of uncertainty, weeks of negotiations and two short-term extensions to keep the government open, Congress passed and the President signed the 2009 page omnibus spending Bill, titled the Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2016. How did federal initiatives that support landscape scale work and fund our natural and cultural conservation program fare?

Read More »

National Heritage Areas Deliver Place-Based Education

The thirtieth anniversary of the first National Heritage Area (NHA) and the upcoming centennial of the National Park Service (NPS), inspired research into the relatively untapped topic of the mutual benefits to both NHAs and the NPS. Recent research has explored how NHAs deliver place-based educational programming in partnership with nearby national park units.

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Credit: Paulette Wallace

Can Parks Organizations Continue to Ignore Social Values in Landscape Stewardship?

“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.

Read More »

San Antonio Missions: Learning from the World Heritage Experience

On October 17, 2015 dignitaries from around the country gathered to celebrate the inscription of the San Antonio Missions as the 23rd World Heritage Site in the Untied States (US) and the first in Texas. The San Antonio Missions are a group of five frontier mission complexes situated along an over seven mile stretch of the San Antonio RiverBehind the well-deserved World Heritage hoopla and the carefully crafted statement of the property’s Outstanding Universal Value, there is more than a decade of hard work. As interested in World Heritage recognition grows in the country and around the globe, what can we learn from the hard won experience of the San Antonio Missions?

Read More »

The 2016 Federal Budget: How did Large Landscapes Fare?

After months of uncertainty, weeks of negotiations and two short-term extensions to keep the government open, Congress passed and the President signed the 2009 page omnibus spending Bill, titled the Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2016. How did federal initiatives that support landscape scale work and fund our natural and cultural conservation program fare?

Read More »

National Heritage Areas Deliver Place-Based Education

The thirtieth anniversary of the first National Heritage Area (NHA) and the upcoming centennial of the National Park Service (NPS), inspired research into the relatively untapped topic of the mutual benefits to both NHAs and the NPS. Recent research has explored how NHAs deliver place-based educational programming in partnership with nearby national park units.

Read More »
Credit: Paulette Wallace

Can Parks Organizations Continue to Ignore Social Values in Landscape Stewardship?

“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.

Read More »