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March 2018

Living Landscape Observer - Nature, Culture, Community
In This Issue
Vietnam: The American Season
Lessons on Interpreting and Representing Slavery
Cultural Parks: What happened?
In the News
About Us
Join Our Mailing List
April 18 - 21, 2018
Las Vegas, Nevada

US/ ICOMOS Symposium
November 13, 2018
San Fransisco CA

November 14 17, 2018
San Fransisco

Cuyahoga Valley National Park. Credit: Recreation.gov

Cuyahoga Valley National Park

Learn more about the history & contemporary emphases of Cuyahoga Valley National Park, a unique landscape in northeast Ohio.

Encompassing rural, agricultural, and urban districts, the park was originally established in 1974 as a National Recreation Area, one of several created by Congress between 1972 and 1978. More recently, the park has focused attention on supporting farms within its boundaries, initiating several innovative programs. In addition, the NPS works closely with the Ohio and Erie Canalway National Heritage Area, which includes the park within its boundaries. 


Living Landscape Observer

Vietnam: The American Season
In Vietnam, our tour guide told us, they call winter the American Season. This is when well-heeled baby boomers come to see a country that figured so large in much of their youth. Some also come to see what has happened to a country that they last saw under battlefield conditions. What they find is a "communist" country in the throes of entrepreneurial high spirts. Not a wealthy country, by any means, but one with a GDP growth rate of over 7%. Where the city streets are lined with small shops and choked with motor scooters.    But what of the war, what remains of the landscape of past conflict?  Read more about that here.

Interpreting and Representing Slavery
Scholars from four continents gathered in the World Heritage listed Rotunda at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville for a two-day conference on  " Interpreting and Representing Slavery and its Legacies in Museums and Sites: International Perspectives" (March 19-20 2018).  The conference explored the variety of ways universities, historic sites, and museums from around the Atlantic World tell the story of slavery and its far reaching legacy. The conference was sponsored by Thomas Jefferson's Monticello, the  University of Virginia , and the  United States Committee of the International Council on Monuments and Sites (US/ICOMOS)  in collaboration with the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO)  S lave Route Project: Resistance, Liberty, and Heritage.  To learn more, read some highlights from the conference here.

View of Lowell National Historical Park. Image credit: NPS.gov
Cultural Parks: What Happened?
In the late 1960s and 1970s, a number of communities hoped to gain federal designation as "National Cultural Parks." In pursuing recognition as "cultural" rather than "historical" landscapes, park supporters sought to upend longstanding norms in the field of conservation that tended to prioritize fixity over change and past over present and possible future evolutions of a site. In the end, however, the push for a new cultural park category proved elusive with each place instead entering the NPS system under the Historical Park designation. Learn more and share your knowledge of the issue here. 

Latest News  and Information 
Update on National Heritage Areas
Supporters of National Heritage Areas, who for the past decade have worked with members of Congress to resist Administration proposals for reduced funding, were particularly dismayed by a request to zero out the program in the President's FY 2018 budget. However, the recently passed Omnibus Budget bill had some good news! Along with a funding boost for most National Park Service programs, the National Heritage Areas received  $20 million -- a figure $500,000 above last year's level. The bill also  extended the authorization of appropriations for the Tennessee Civil War, Augusta Canal, and South Carolina National Heritage Areas for a year. The downsi de --- the FY 2019 zeros the program out again.  

And, in other news, there is still interest in creating new National Heritage Areas. Recently a bill to study the designation of the New York Finger Lakes region cleared its first hurdle and was voted out of the Senate Energy and Natural Resource Committee. 

More on Culture and Nature
Indigenous peoples are changing the way Canada thinks about conservation. Shifting the concept from one of preserving natural landscapes from human incursion to one that both emphasizes sustainable relationships between humans and and non-human nature and revitalizes traditional cultural practices. To learn more, read this interview with Valerie Courtois, Director of the Indigenous Leadership Initiative.

Crowdsourcing Landscape Conservation   
The Westmorland Dales Landscape Partnership Scheme, funded by the Heritage Lottery,  has launched a new web-based tool developed by Natural England. The goal is to engage the public in identifying special places on an online map of the area and specify just what it is about these places the public values with the aim od developing better conservation plans.  Read about the initiative and try out the tool here. 

Mark April 13 on Your Calendar Watch a live stream program on the future of our National Monuments  by following this link --  https://jhu-bears-ears.eventbrite.com



About Us

The Living Landscape Observer is a website, blog and monthly e-newsletter that offers commentary and information on the emerging field of large landscape conservation. This approach emphasizes the preservation of a "sense of place" and blends ingredients of land conservation, heritage preservation, and sustainable community development. Learn more about how you can get involved or sign up for the newsletter here.  

Our Mission: To provide observations and information on the emerging fields of landscape scale conservation, heritage preservation and sustainable community development.