foru the george wright m · 2016. 9. 8. · gary e. davis, david m. graber, and steven a. acker 34...

The George Wright

FORUM volume 21 number 2 • June 2004

Intangible Values of Protected Areas

Origins Founded in 1980, the George Wright Society is organized for the purposes of promoting the application of knowledge, fostering communication, improving resource management, and providing information to improve public understanding and appreciation of the basic purposes of natural and cultural parks and equivalent reserves. The Society is dedicated to the protection, preservation, and management of cultural and natural parks and reserves through research and education.

Mission The George Wright Society advances the scientific and heritage values of parks and protected areas. The Society promotes professional research and resource stewardship across natural and cultural disciplines, provides avenues of communication, and encourage public policies that embrace these values.

Our Goal The Society strives to be the premier organization connecting people, places, knowledge, and ideas to foster excellence in natural and cultural resource management, research, protection, and interpretation in parks and equivalent reserves.

Board of Directors

DwiCHT T. PlTCAITHLEY, President • Rcston, Virginia

ABIGAIL B. MILLER, Vice President • Alexandria, Virginia

JERRY EMORY, Treasurer • Mill Valley, California

GILLIAN BOWSER, Secretary • Bryan, Texas

REBECCA CONARD • Mnrfrecsboro, Tennessee

BRUCE M. KiLGORE • Poeatcllo, Idaho

D.WIDj. PARSONS • Florence, Montana

JOHN J. REYNOLDS • Castro Valley, California

RICHARD B. SMITH • Placitas, New Mexico

WILLIAM H. WALKER, JR. • Herndon, Virginia

STEPHEN WOODLEY • Chelsea, Quebec

Executive Office DAVID HARMON, Executive Director ROBERT M. LINN, Membership Coordinator EMILY DEKKER-FIALA, Conference Coordinator P. O. Box 05 • Hancock, Michigan 49930-0065 USA

1-906-487-9722 • fax 1-906-487-9405 infofgIgeorgewright.org • wrww.georgewright.org

The George Wright Society is a member of US/ICOMOS (International Council on Monuments and Sites—U.S. Committee), IUCN-The World Conservation Union, and The Natural Resources Council of America

© 2004 The George Wright Society, Inc. All rights reserved. (No copyright is claimed for previously published material reprinted herein.) ISSN 0732-4715

Editorial guidelines may be found on the inside back cover. Text paper is made of 50% recycled fibers. Printed by Book Concern Printers, Hancock, Michigan.

http://infofgIgeorgewright.org

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INTANGIBLE VALUES OF PROTECTED AREAS

Managing the IntangibleAnthony J. English and Ellen Lee

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Intangible Values of Protected Areas:What Are They? Why Do They Matter?

David Harmon9

Battling Religions in Parks and Forest Reserves:Facing Religion in Conflicts over Protected Places

Bron Taylor and Joel Geffen56

Protected Landscapes in Canada: Current Practice and Future SignificanceGuy S. Swinnerton and Susan Buggey

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Society News, Notes & Mail2

F O R U MT h e G e o r g e W r i g h t

volume 21 number 2 • June 2004

MISSION STATEMENTSReading the Earth: From Wonder to Appreciation

Robert Sterling Yard5

On the cover: the soaring walls of Canyon de Chelly National Monument (USA)symbolize several intangible values: aesthetic beauty, scientific interest, and

cultural meaning. Photo courtesy of Eduardo Crespo de Nogueira

Aesthetic Values and Protected Areas: A Story of Symbol PreservationEduardo Crespo de Nogueira and Consuelo Martínez Flores

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National Parks as Scientific Benchmark Standards for the Biosphere;Or, How Are You Going to Tell How It Used to Be,

When There’s Nothing Left to See?Gary E. Davis, David M. Graber, and Steven A. Acker

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Life and the Nature of Life—in ParksHolmes Rolston III

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2 The George Wright FORUM

Society News, Notes & MailCall for Papers: GWS 2005 Conference

The next George Wright Society Conference will be held at the LoewsPhiladelphia Hotel March 14–18, 2005. By the time you receive this issue of theFORUM, the Call for Papers will just be coming out via e-mail. All GWS membersfor whom we have e-mail addresses will get the CFP automatically. If you are nota member, or if you otherwise missed the CFP, send a note to [email protected] and we’ll get one to you right away. The deadline for receipt ofabstracts is October 1—earlier than in years past, so please mark your calendar!

2003 Conference Proceedings PublishedProtecting Our Diverse Heritage: The Role of Parks, Protected Areas, andCultural Sites, the proceedings volume from the 2003 GWS / National ParkService joint conference, was published in March. Ninety-six papers are includ-ed, covering a wide range of topics. The book (427 pp.) is available as a paper-back ($26.00; $19.50 for GWS members) or on CD ($10.00 / $7.50) postpaidto U.S. and Canadian addresses (additional shipping elsewhere). To order, go towww.georgewright.org and follow the links from the right-hand column.

Complete Library of The George Wright Forum Now Available on CDNow you can have a comprehensive collection of The George Wright Forum thatwill take up only about two inches on your bookshelf. The entire backlist of theForum—every issue from its inception in 1981 through 2003—is now availableas a set of four CDs. You get high-quality PDF versions that are suitable for on-screen viewing or printing. We are selling these sets at a special introductoryprice of $20.00 ($15.00 for GWS members). A limited number of sets are avail-able at this cost; when these are gone, the price will go up. To order, go towww.georgewright.org and follow the links from the right-hand column.

Ocean Park Conservation on the RiseNot since the 1960s, when the Stratton Commission examined ocean policy,have Americans focused so clearly on ocean conservation and governance. LastJune, a Pew Foundation-funded commission lead by Leon Panetta and DavidRockefeller reported the results of a two-year study of ocean conditions(www.pewoceans.org). This April, a congressionally chartered U. S. OceanCommission led by retired navy Admiral James D. Watkins did the same(www.oceancommission.gov). Both commissions expressed concern for deplet-ed ocean resources and recommended changes in federal activities. In 2001, theNational Park System Advisory Board encouraged the National Park Service toplay a leadership role in ocean conservation, noting that, “If human stewardshiphas been lax on land, it has been even worse in the sea” (www.nps.gov/policy/futurereport.htm). In response to these notices of concern over ocean resources,the National Park Service developed a strategy to improve conservation in the 72ocean parks, and established a task force of superintendents and national pro-

Volume 21 • Number 2 2004 3

gram managers to implement the strategy. The framework for this strategy wasdeveloped in a series of four sessions at the 2003 George Wright SocietyConference in San Diego, California.

New and Noteworthy• NPS partnership with USGS on the national map. The National Park

Service is developing a geodatabase application to roll up geospatial datafrom the NPS base cartography inventory. The geodatabase will utilize a datamodel that is compatible with the U.S. Geological Survey national map. Amajor initiative of the USGS, the national map promotes a consistent frame-work for geographic knowledge. A draft concept paper and initial data layerstandards documents are available for review at www.nps.gov/gis/data_info/standards.html under the National Map Data Architecture head-ing.

• Pitcaithley, Shull contribute to book on public history and the environ-ment. GWS President Dwight T. Pitcaithley and the keeper of the NationalRegister, Carol Shull, were recent contributors to a new publication byKrieger Publishing Company, Public History and the Environment, edited byMartin Melosi and Philip Scarpino. Their chapter, titled “Melding theEnvironment and Public History: The Evolution and Maturation of theNational Park Service,” argues that the National Park Service is a very differ-ent agency from the one created in 1916. It has evolved, especially over thelast fifteen years, into an agency that has a far more sophisticated understand-ing of the environment and of the role historic places play in contemporarysociety. The National Park Service’s more expansive management of historicplaces, a more inclusive vision of the National Register of Historic Places andthe National Historic Landmark Program, and a re-configuring of theNational Park System by Congress, all have combined to create a system ofparks and a management structure that could not have been imagined byStephen T. Mather. For more info, go to www.krieger-publishing.com/html/publicstack_11.html.

• New suite of biodiversity tools. NPS has released a new set of biodiversitytools and web sites, including NPSpecies, the biodiversity data store, species-new-to-science web pages, and nature guides. More info: http://nature.nps.gov/ScienceResearch/Biodiversity.

• Research Links covers ecological history, more. The new (spring 2004)issue of Parks Canada’s research newsletter features articles on the ecologicalhistory of caribou and musk ox on Ellesmere Island; patterns of visitor use inBanff, Kootenay, and Yoho national parks; and using digital cameras to mon-itor plant biomass at Grasslands National Park. Available in PDF format uponrequest. For more info, contact the editor, Dianne Dickinson, at [email protected].


• New book on the curation of archeological collections. Our CollectiveResponsibility: The Ethics and Practice of Archaeological CollectionsStewardship, by S. Terry Childs of the National Park Service’s archeologyand ethnography program, discusses ethics concerning the stewardship ofarcheological collections and offers practical articles about their managementand care. Articles cover budgeting for curation, the long-term preservation ofarchival and digital records, access and use of collections, Native Americanissues, and collection rehabilitation. Info at www.saa.org.

• “Ethnic and Racial Diversity of National Park System Visitors and Non-Visitors”: technical report. Prepared by the Social Research Laboratory atNorthern Arizona University, and based on data from the 2000 NPSComprehensive Survey of the American Public. Available at www.nature.nps.gov/socialscience/products.htm.

• “Meeting Challenges with Geologic Maps.” This publication of theAmerican Geological Institute (AGI) shows how information from geologicmaps is useful in everyday life. The document presents 16 examples thatshow how geologic maps are helping to delineate fragile habitat and ecosys-tems, protect against natural hazards, and find needed resources. Available atwww.agiweb.org/pubs/pubdetail.html?item=634601.

• Report on ozone-sensitive plant species. The report, from the NPS AirResources Division (ARD), summarizes the results of a June 2003 workshopin Baltimore, Maryland. At the workshop, a group of ozone effects scientistsreviewed, revised, and updated lists of sensitive plant species. Copies of thereport can be obtained from ARD (contact Ellen Porter at 303-969-2617)and an electronic version will soon be available at www2.nature.nps.gov/air/pubs. The ARD can also provide lists of park-specific ozone-sensitivespecies and users of NPSpecies will soon be able to generate lists of sensitivespecies in real-time.

• American Birding Association volunteer directory now on-line. TheAmerican Birding Association’s (ABA’s) volunteer opportunities for birdersdirectory is now available on-line. Each year the ABA gathers and publishesinformation on bird-related projects in need of volunteers. The directory ispublished as a service to ABA’s 22,000 members, typically very skilled bird-ers, and as a service to the agencies and organizations in need of skilled vol-unteers to help with bird-related projects. Parks have advertised for volun-teers in this directory for years. Review the current directory at www.ameri-canbirding.org/opps/. On-line submissions (free listings) are welcome at anytime.

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The national parks of Americainclude areas of the noblest and mostdiversified scenic sublimity easilyaccessible in the world; nevertheless itis their chiefest glory that they areamong the completest expression ofthe earth’s history. The American peo-ple is waking rapidly to the magnitudeof its scenic possession; it has yet tolearn to appreciate it....

“Is it true,” a woman asked me atthe foot of Yosemite Falls, “that this isthe highest unbroken waterfall in theworld?”

She was an average tourist, metthere by chance. I assured her thatsuch was the fact. I called attention tothe apparent deliberation of the

water’s fall, a trick of the senses result-ing from failure to realize height anddistance.

“To think they are the highest inthe world!” she mused.

I told her that the soft fingers ofwater had carved this valley threethousand feet into the solid granite,and that ice had polished its walls, andI estimated for her the ages since theMerced River flowed at the level of thecataract’s brink.

“I’ve seen the tallest building in theworld,” she replied dreamily, “and thelongest railroad, and the largest lake,and the highest monument, and thebiggest department store, and now Isee the highest waterfall. Just think of


MISSION STATEMENTSReading the Earth: From Wonder to Appreciation

Robert Sterling Yard

Ed. note: An important figure in the early development of the National Park Service, RobertSterling Yard was hand-picked by Stephen Mather to spearhead publicity for the new nationalpark system. A former editor with several widely read national magazines, Yard was enthusiasticand effective in helping make the national parks into beloved American icons. In this excerpt fromthe first chapter of The Book of the National Parks (1919), Yard extols the benefits of a deeperunderstanding of natural phenomena as a way to achieve real appreciation of the parks.

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To the average educated American, scenery is a pleasing hodge-podge ofmountains, valleys, plains, lakes, and rivers. To him, the glacier-hol-lowed valley of Yosemite, the stream-scooped abyss of the GrandCanyon, the volcanic gulf of Crater Lake, the bristling granite core of

the Rockies, and the ancient ice-carved shales of Glacier National Park all areone—just scenery, magnificent, incomparable, meaningless. As a people we havebeen content to wonder, not to know; yet with scenery, as with all else, to knowis to begin fully to enjoy. Appreciation measures enjoyment. And this brings meto my proposition, namely, that we shall not really enjoy our possession of thegrandest scenery in the world until we realize that scenery is the written page ofthe History of Creation, and until we learn to read that page.

it!”If one has illusions concerning the

average tourist, let him compare thehundreds who gape at the paint potsand geysers of Yellowstone with thedozens who exult in the sublimatedglory of the colorful canyon. Or lethim listen to the table-talk of a partyreturned from Crater Lake. Or let himrecall the statistical superlatives whichmade up his friend’s last letter fromthe Grand Canyon.

I am not condemning wonder,which, in its place, is a legitimate andpleasurable emotion. As a condimentto sharpen and accent an aboundingsense of beauty it has real and abidingvalue.

Love of beauty is practically a uni-versal passion. It is that which luresmillions into the fields, valleys, woods,and mountains on every holiday,which crowds our ocean lanes andrailroads. The fact that few of theserejoicing millions are aware of theirown motive, and that, strangelyenough, a few even would be ashamedto make the admission if they becameaware of it, has nothing to do with thefact. It’s a wise man that knows hisown motives. The fact that still fewer,whether aware or not of the reason oftheir happiness, are capable of makingthe least expression of it, also hasnothing to do with the fact. Thetourist woman whom I met at the footof Yosemite Falls may have felt secret-ly suffocated by the filmy grandeur ofthe incomparable spectacle, notwith-standing that she was conscious of nohigher emotion than the cheap won-der of a superlative. The GrandCanyon is the stillest crowded place Iknow. I’ve stood among a hundredpeople on a precipice and heard thewhir of a bird’s wings in the abyss.

Probably the majority of those silentgazers were suffering something akinto pain at their inability to give vent tothe emotions bursting within them.

I believe that the statement can notbe successfully challenged that, as apeople, our enjoyment of scenery isalmost wholly emotional. Love ofbeauty spiced by wonder is the equip-ment for enjoyment of the averageintelligent traveller of to-day. Now addto this a more or less equal part of theintellectual pleasure of comprehen-sion and you have the equipment ofthe average intelligent traveller of to-morrow. To hasten this to-morrow isone of the several objects of this book.

To see in the carved and colorfuldepths of the Grand Canyon not onlythe stupendous abyss whose terriblebeauty grips the soul, but also to-day’schapter in a thrilling story of creationwhose beginning lay untold centuriesback in the ages, whose scene coversthree hundred thousand square milesof our wonderful southwest, whoseactors include the greatest forces ofnature, whose tremendous episodesshame the imagination of [theRomantic illustrator Gustave] Doré,and whose logical end invites sugges-tions before which finite mindsshrink—this is to come into the pres-ence of the great spectacle properlyequipped for its enjoyment. But howmany who see the Grand Canyon getmore out of it than merely the beautythat grips the soul?

So it is throughout the world ofscenery. The geologic story written onthe cliffs of Crater Lake is more stu-pendous even than the glory of itsindigo bowl. The war of titanic forcesdescribed in simple language on therocks of Glacier National Park is unex-celled in sublimity in the history of


mankind. The story of Yellowstone’smaking multiplies many times thethrill occasioned by its world-famedspectacle. Even the simplest andsmallest rock details often tell thrillingincidents of prehistoric times out ofwhich the enlightened imaginationreconstructs the romances and thetragedies of earth’s earlier days.

How eloquent, for example, wasthe small, water-worn fragment of dullcoal we found on the limestone slopeof one of Glacier’s mountains!Impossible companionship! The onethe product of forest, the other of sub-merged depths. Instantly I glimpsedthe distant age when thousands of feetabove the very spot which I stood, butthen at sea level, bloomed aCretaceous forest, whose brokentrunks and matted foliage decayed inbogs where they slowly turned to coal;coal which, exposed and disintegratedduring intervening ages, has longsince—all but a few fragments likethis—washed into the headwaters ofthe Saskatchewan to merge eventuallyin the muds of Hudson Bay. Andthen, still dreaming, my mind leapedmillions of years still further back tolake bottoms where, ten thousand feetbelow the spot on which I stood, gath-ered the pre-Cambrian ooze whichlater hardened to this very limestone.From ooze a score of thousand feet, ahundred million years, to coal! Andboth lie here together now in my palm!Filled thus with visions of a perspec-tive beyond human comprehension,with what multiplied intensity of inter-est I now returned to the noble viewfrom Gable Mountain!

In pleading for a higher under-standing of Nature’s method and

accomplishment as a precedent tostudy and observation of our nationalparks, I seek enormously to enrich theenjoyment not only of these supremeexamples but of all examples of worldmaking. The same readings which willprepare you to enjoy to the full themessage of our national parks willinvest your neighborhood hills athome, your creek and river andprairie, your vacation valleys, the land-scape through your car window, evenyour wayside ditch, with living inter-est. I invite you to a new and fascinat-ing earth, an earth interesting, vital,personal, beloved, because at lastknown and understood!

It requires no great study to knowand understand the earth well enoughfor such purpose as this. One does nothave to dim his eyes with acres ofmaps, or become a plodding geologist,or learn to distinguish schists fromgranites, or to classify plants by table,or to call wild geese and marmots bytheir Latin names. It is true that geog-raphy, geology, physiography, mineral-ogy, botany and zoology must eachcontribute their share toward the con-dition of intelligence which will enableyou to realize appreciation of Nature’samazing earth, but the share of each isso small that the problem will besolved, not by exhaustive study, but bythe selection of essential parts. Two orthree popular books which interpretnatural science in perspective shouldpleasurably accomplish your purpose.But once begun, I predict that few willfail to carry certain subjects beyondthe mere essentials, while some willenter for life into a land of newdelights.


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“Mission Statements” is an occasional column that presents compelling state-ments of values and ideals that are important to the people, places, and professionsthat the Society serves. We are looking for inspirational and insightful writingsthat touch on close-to-the-heart issues that motivate us to do what we do as parkprofessionals. We invite readers to submit their own Mission Statements, or sug-gest previously published essays that we might reprint in this column. ContactGWS executive director Dave Harmon at [email protected] or by phoneat 1-906-487-9722.

Nevertheless, important as thesetangible values are, the reasons whypeople care deeply about protectedareas ultimately have little or nothingto do with them. There is anotherarena of values, values whose benefitsare difficult or impossible to quantify,but which lie at the heart of the pro-tective impulse that drives the modernconservation movement. These intan-gible values (also referred to as nonma-terial values) include the intrinsicvalue of nature as well as “that whichenriches the intellectual, psychologi-cal, emotional, spiritual, culturaland/or creative aspects of human exis-tence and well being” (WCPA 2000).

This issue of The George WrightForum offers a look into the arena ofintangible values. With the exceptionof this overview (a version of whichwas originally published in the IUCNjournal Policy Matters), the material

presented here is drawn entirely fromThe Full Value of Parks: FromEconomics to the Intangible, which theauthor co-edited with Allen D. Putney,who leads the Task Force on Culturaland Spiritual Values of IUCN’s WorldCommission on Protected Areas(Harmon and Putney 2003). Thebook—conceived for the Fifth WorldParks Congress last September inSouth Africa—drew on a worldwideroster of authors to explore the topic.For the Forum, I have selected fivechapters from the book to illustrate therange of intangible values.

What are these values? The WCPAtask force has classified eleven majorkinds, all of which spring from partic-ular qualities of protected areas (listadapted from Putney 2003):

1. Recreational values, those qualitiesthat interact with humans to


David Harmon

Intangible Values of Protected Areas:What Are They? Why Do They Matter?

The creation and management of protected areas is now a global enter-prise. From humble beginnings in a rather obscure corner of NorthAmerica more than a century ago, protected areas now involve millionsof hectares on every continent (including Antarctica) and probably well

over 100,000 professional caretakers worldwide. Protected areas are the center-piece of conservation, universally acknowledged as the indispensable core of anyeffort to preserve biodiversity and, more broadly, environmental quality.Economically, they are a dynamic component of the world’s largest industry,tourism, and are the foundation of one of that industry’s fastest-growing sectors,nature-based tourism (Eagles 2003). Together, the conservation and economicvalues of protected areas are undoubtedly immense, though they have neverbeen completely quantified. Yet these values are capable of being measured.Conservation values can be expressed monetarily through models of the“ecosystem services” that protected areas provide (free of charge!) to the mar-ketplace economy (see Daily 1997), while there are several economic formulasfor estimating the revenue generated by tourism to protected areas (e.g., the U.S.National Park Service’s Money Generation Model II; Stynes and Propst 2000).

restore, refresh, or create anewthrough stimulation and exercise ofthe mind, body, and soul (i.e., re-creation).

2. Therapeutic values, those that cre-ate the potential for healing, and forenhancing physical and psycholog-ical well-being.

3. Spiritual values, those that inspirehumans to relate with reverence tothe sacredness of nature.

4. Cultural values, those that areascribed to natural, cultural, andmixed sites by different socialgroups, traditions, beliefs, or valuesystems. These values, whetherpositive or negative, fulfillhumankind’s need to understand,and connect in meaningful ways, tothe environment of its origin andthe rest of nature.

5. Identity values, those that link peo-ple to their landscape throughmyth, legend, or history.

6. Existence values, those thatembody the satisfaction, symbolicimportance, and even willingnessto pay, derived from knowing thatoutstanding natural and culturallandscapes have been protected sothat they exist as physical and con-ceptual spaces where forms of lifeand culture are valued.

7. Artistic values, those that inspirehuman imagination in creativeexpression.

8. Aesthetic values, those that carry anappreciation of the beauty found innature.

9. Educational values, those thatenlighten the careful observer withrespect to humanity’s relationshipswith the natural environment, andby extension, humanity’s relation-ships with one another, therebycreating respect and understand-ing.

10. Scientific research and monitor-ing values, those that contributeto the function of natural areas asrefuges, benchmarks, and base-lines that provide scientists andinterested individuals with rela-tively natural sites less influencedby human-induced change orconversion.

11. Peace values, those that con-tribute to the function of protect-ed areas as a means of fosteringregional peace and stabilitythrough cooperative managementacross international land or seaboundaries (transboundary pro-tected areas), as “interculturalspaces” for the development ofunderstanding between distinctcultures, or as places of “civicengagement” where difficultmoral and political questions canbe constructively addressed.

There are many other intangiblevalues of protected areas, but theremainder of this overview will focuson these.

Recreational ValuesIt is intuitively obvious that the mil-

lions of people who visit protectedareas each year derive benefits fromthe recreational activities they dothere. The challenge for protectedarea researchers and managers hasbeen to gain a more precise under-standing of the types of benefits recre-ation provides, as well as their cumula-tive significance. A great deal of socialscience research has been conductedinto all aspects of leisure in outdoorsettings, and the results of thatresearch are increasingly being usedby park managers to guide their deci-sions.

“Recreation” is simply defined as


activities pursued while at leisure.“Recreational use of protected areas”is defined as visits by local and region-al residents and by tourists. There arethree distinct components of leisurebenefits: (1) gains made by an individ-ual, a group, or society at large (e.g.,the realization of physiological bene-fits, skill improvements, the creation ofjobs); (2) the avoidance of losses bymaintaining a desired condition (e.g.,using backpacking to promote familycohesion); and (3) the realization ofspecific satisfying psychological expe-riences, also termed “psychologicaloutcomes,” that accrue only to indi-viduals (e.g., stress release; Driver andBruns 1999).

In the beginning of park-basedrecreation research, benefits werelargely assessed by the expedient ofsimply counting visitor numbers, eventhough they are notoriously difficult tocollect and subject to managerial med-dling (Hornback and Eagles 1999).More recently, emphasis has been puton the benefits (and possible disad-vantages) accruing to individuals andsociety from park-based recreation.

The question of whether park-based recreation is associated withspecific benefits is difficult to answerbecause the necessary research has notyet been undertaken (Roggenbuckand Driver 2000). However, as Shultis(2003) notes, “considerable researchon the self-reported benefits of recre-ating in protected areas has identifieda basic, relatively constant range ofbenefits, including enjoyment of thenatural environment, escape fromurban/home/built environments, restand relaxation, achievement/chal-lenge, and health/fitness.” The prob-lem is that “we still know frustratinglylittle about what ... these benefit cate-gories truly mean” or what their signif-

icance is to individuals and society.Nevertheless, “it seems clear that inpursuing recreational activities in pro-tected areas, park visitors obtain aprodigious range and depth of psy-chological and physiological benefitsthat manifest themselves throughoutindividuals and wider society.” In thissense, “recreational values are not‘intangible’ to park users: the benefitsof using parks reverberate throughouttheir lives and have clear significance.However, these same benefits and val-ues become intangible when parkadvocates attempt to bring them intothe sociopolitical arena,” preciselybecause they are difficult to quantify(Shultis 2003).

Therapeutic ValuesWhereas recreation values of pro-

tected areas derive from non-facilitat-ed leisure activities, therapeutic valuesresult from intentional, structuredactivity designed to ameliorate a spe-cific social or personal problem.People have repaired to natural areasto gain healing for thousands of years,but directed therapeutic programsaimed at producing clinical outcomeshave been around for only about a cen-tury. The programs date back at leastto 1901 and the “tent treatment” ofpsychiatric patients at ManhattanState Hospital East in New York City,and later (in the 1930s) expanded intocamps addressing the psychologicalneeds of individual adolescents. Theuse of wilderness therapy (which isconsidered a modified form of grouppsychotherapy) expanded greatly inthe 1970s, while the 1980s and 1990swere growth periods for the utilizationof wilderness therapy for youth withproblem behaviors (Ewert et al. 2003).Today, in the United States alone it isestimated that there are over 500


organizations offering wilderness pro-grams for personal growth and devel-opment (Friese 1996). OutwardBound, an international wildernessadventure program, serves about40,000 people each year in its world-wide programs (Hattie et al. 1997).

As Ewert et al. (2003) point out,“there is considerable debate amongpractitioners and researchers as towhat constitutes a ‘therapeutic’ use ofnatural areas,” yet “trends in program-ming reflect how the practice is evolv-ing given the severity of problemsthese programs have begun to addressin treatment.” In the United States,where the majority are found, thetrend is toward “sophisticated thera-peutic programs that are often statelicensed and employ a medical modelof treatment that includes clinicalsupervision by licensed therapists.”Numerous well-developed clinicalmodels are now in use.

What makes protected areas thera-peutic? Research suggests answersthat fall into two broad categories.First, parks and the activities that takeplace in them represent both a sym-bolic and an actual break with one’s“normal life.” Crossing that divideproduces benefits. Going to parks canspur an increase in personal aware-ness, with the outdoor setting oftencausing individuals to change patternsof self-destructive behavior. This inturn can result in an increase in socialawareness, and a concomitantdecrease in anti-social behavior.Second, the activities one does in pro-tected areas—hiking, camping, con-templating nature, etc.—demand ini-tiative, action, and sustained attentionon the part of the individual. Thisresults in an immediacy of experience.For example, if one has hiked into aremote area and decides to lounge

around all afternoon rather than set upcamp, the consequences are felt verysoon thereafter, whereas “in town” (soto speak) the consequences of irre-sponsible behavior are often bufferedand delayed. In addition, success indealing with outdoor situations usual-ly demands teamwork, which has itsown rewards. Combine that with closecontact with the primal forces ofnature, and park visitors often takehome with them a constructive—andtherapeutic—sense of humility(Hendee and Brown 1987; West andCrompton 2001).

Spiritual ValuesProtected areas often encompass

specific sites, or even entire land-scapes, that are considered sacred. Inaddition, many people regard certainprotected areas themselves as quasi-sacred because they have been dedi-cated to high purposes in perpetuity—rather like the way consecrating abuilding makes it into a church. Thus,people may engage spiritual values inprotected areas by encountering spe-cific places of “ultimate meaning andtranscendent power” (Chidester1987; see Figure 1), or they may expe-rience a spiritually transformativeexperience simply by encounteringnature in a place that they know is pro-tected in perpetuity (Taylor andGeffen 2003; cf. Harmon 2003).

It is another matter for a protectednatural area to be created preciselybecause it is a sacred site. Pilgrimagesto special natural places for personalreflection, rites of passage, and spiritu-al renewal are a feature of culturesaround the world (Ewert et al. 2003).A pioneering effort in Mexico hasresulted in one of the world’s first pro-tected areas designated as a “sacrednatural site,” a category of protected


area that is beginning to receive atten-tion (Lee and Schaaf 2003). TheWirikuta Sacred Natural Site in thestate of San Luis Potosi protects areasof the Chihuahuan Desert that arerevered by the Huichol (or Wixarika)people. Each year, a small number ofchosen representatives make the trekto Wirikuta, where, after a series ofofferings and rituals, the pilgrimsingest peyote, a cactus whose hallu-cinogenic effects are central to givingHuichols access to spiritual insights.In addition to the sacred sites them-selves, over 135 kilometers of the tra-ditional pilgrimage route the Huicholsuse to reach Wirikuta have now beenprotected by the San Luis Potosi gov-ernment (Otegui 2003).

Of all the intangible values of pro-tected areas, spiritual values are poten-

tially the most contentious. As moregroups assert (or re-assert) their rightto use sacred sites within protectedareas, managers increasingly findthemselves in the position of beingasked to arbitrate between spiritualand religious values that conflict witheach other or with other kinds ofvalue. Much to the consternation ofpark managers, in such situations“there is no way for those vested withmanagement responsibility to fullyaccommodate both points of view”(Taylor and Geffen 2003).

Cultural and Identity ValuesIn many indigenous societies there

is no clear division between one’s cul-ture, one’s personal identity, and one’sspirituality. Moreover, these multi-faceted cultural–identity values are


Figure 1. The National Historic Sanctuary of Machu Picchu in Peru. Inscribed as a WorldHeritage site for both its cultural and natural values, Machu Picchu’s history as an impor-tant Incan city, and the poignancy of its eventual abandonment, combine with a spectac-ular natural setting to make it a place of “transcendent power” that draws visitors fromaround the world. Photo courtesy of Allen D. Putney.

often inscribed (either figuratively orliterally) into an ancestral landscape,many of which now fall withingazetted protected areas. How suchlandscapes are regarded by local com-munities is now acknowledged as animportant factor that must be account-ed for in protected area managementstrategies. Agencies are learning that“it is not possible ... to simply excludeor erase values from an area of land byclassifying it in a particular way” forpark management purposes (Englishand Lee 2003). Recent changes in themanagement of Australia’s protectedareas in response to Aboriginal rightsand concerns provide a case in point,with activities ranging from co-man-agement through to the mapping of“wild resource use places” within pro-tected areas (Weaver 1991; English2002). More flexible protected areadesignations, such as IUCN CategoryV protected landscapes, are seen asone way to better accommodate land-scape-based cultural values (Andrade2003; Sarmiento 2003).

But in other societies, cultural andidentity values of protected areas maybe distinguished from spiritual valuesby virtue of their being secular mark-ers of distinctiveness. The wildernessmovement, which had its origins in theunique history of European coloniza-tion of North America, straddles theline between sacred and secular butnow boasts a strong scientific justifica-tion. The existence of large areas ofwilderness has been claimed as anessential part of the make-up of“American character.” Ironically, des-ignated wilderness has itself become acultural icon whose putative characterrests at least in part on the dubiousclaim that these places were historical-ly free of cultural content (for anoverview, see Callicott and Nelson

1998). The construal of what—if any-thing—constitutes wilderness certain-ly varies from culture to culture, par-ticularly when developed- and devel-oping-country perspectives are com-pared (Barnes 2003).

A key issue here, as Hay-Edie(2003) has made clear, is the difficultyof transferring conservation tech-niques (which many conservationiststake for granted as being universallyapplicable, rather than as products of aparticular culture) from one social set-ting to another. In their eagerness toembrace cultural values, he writes,“conservationists are often at risk ofpicking and choosing taboos, sanc-tions, and other supposedly ecologi-cally useful behaviors without meetinga complex culture on its own terms.”Yet Hay-Edie feels that a “more gen-uine interface of worldviews seemspossible” through the mechanism ofthe World Heritage Convention (Hay-Edie 2003). In recent revisions of itscriteria for inclusion on the WorldHeritage List, the convention has notonly recognized intangible culturaland identity values as important con-tributors, but has inscribed “mixedsites” having both natural and culturalcomponents (Rössler 2003). Similarinclusiveness can also be found inUNESCO’s biosphere reserve pro-gram (Schaaf 2003).

It is worth emphasizing that cultur-al and identity values are perhapsstrongest in community-run protectedareas: those protected by customaryforms of recognition that are, in termsof effectiveness, equivalent to the forceof state-sponsored civil law (Harmon2003). Interestingly, these communi-ty-level cultural and identity values areby no means incompatible with theconservation of biodiversity; in SouthAsia (among other places), there are


many examples where biodiversity ispart of the constellation of cultural val-ues (Pathak and Kothari 2003).Similarly, in southwest Cameroon theNyangkpe sacred forests not onlyserve as de facto protected areasimportant to biodiversity conserva-tion, but also play an paramount rolein solidifying cultural identity and reg-ulating the general social order(Kamanda et al. 2003).

Existence ValuesExistence values—the satisfaction

derived from knowing that protectedareas exist, that they safeguard out-standing natural and cultural land-scapes, even though one might haveno prospect whatsoever of actually vis-iting them—might seem, at first, to bea rather bloodless, abstract category ofvalue, hardly comparable in visceralforce to those that we have discussedso far. In a sense this is true enough.Yet existence values are widely held,adding a dimension of depth to otherintangible values that, if missing,would render them far less effective.We can say that existence values arepart of a moral foundation underlyingall the other intangible values of pro-tected areas.

Why do so many people derive sat-isfaction from simply knowing thatprotected areas exist? Fundamentally,they are reacting to a profound angst, afear that modern civilization is pro-gressively destroying the natural worldand hence eroding the biophysicalgroundwork that underlies our cher-ished cultures and human identity.This feeling is complicated by the factthat most of us at the same time aregrateful for whatever technologicaladvantages we enjoy over our ances-tors, advantages that we would notwant to be without. The result is a cav-

ernous psychological rift within our-selves. Knowing that protected areasexist is, therefore, a salve to our con-science: we can take heart in knowingthat perhaps not all of nature will belost, that indeed enough will be pre-served to enable ecosystems to contin-ue to function.

This begs the question of whethersuch existence values are in fact not asalve at all, but rather a mere sop toour conscience. Here we are led towhat is perhaps the largest, most diffi-cult uncertainty facing the wholeenterprise of protected area conserva-tion: Are all our efforts really going tomake a difference in the long run? Ifwe are honest with ourselves, we haveto admit that it is very much an openquestion. Currently, only a small frac-tion of the world’s lands and watershave protected status under law orcustom, and there is no account ofhow effective that status is. Still, from apractical standpoint, we must go for-ward in the belief that protected areaswill make a difference. To do other-wise would be to admit certain defeat,and that would be far worse than quib-bling about whether our hopes forsuccess are misplaced or not.

Aesthetic and Artistic ValuesOne reason why existence values

are so deeply held is because they arerooted in a powerful human need forsensual engagement, and no one candeny that the world’s protected natu-ral areas contain many superlativeplaces that delight the senses. One firstthinks of stunning scenery: snowymountains and surging waterfalls,immense tundra and teeming rain-forests, sweeping grassland vistas andstark deserts. But other senses areinvolved too, particularly those oftouch, smell, and hearing. Parks are


very tactile places, where one isencouraged to feel nature at an inti-mate scale, to thrust one’s hand into abed of moss, or let beach sand runthrough one’s fingers at seaside, or feelthe rocks beneath one’s feet on arugged trail. Odors and aromas—pinepitch, animal musk, wildflowers,campfires—add irreplaceable texture,and, when recollected, often set off awhole succession of memories thatmake a park experience unforgettable.Combine all this with the sounds ofnature—birdsong, wind whistlingdown a canyon, lapping waves, thedripping of water from a desert seep,and, perhaps the rarest and mostpriceless of all, the perfection ofsilence, of total quiet—and one comesaway with an aesthetic experience thatfar surpasses any human contrivancein terms of variety and complexity.

Historically, aesthetic or percep-tion-based values played a key role indetermining which natural landscapesreceived protection. They still do,despite the increasing emphasis onbiodiversity protection and ecologicalrepresentativeness as keystone criteria.The reason is deep-seated: over thecourse of evolutionary time, we devel-oped an ineradicable complex of emo-tional responses to sensory stimula-tion. We use these responses tohumanize elements of the environ-ment and relations between them.Now, however, thanks to an expandedand enlightened sense of aestheticsinformed by scientific understanding,even landscapes traditionally consid-ered to be ugly and inhospitable (e.g.,scrubland, steppes, bare dunes) can bedrawn into the protective fold because“landscape perception parameters canbe successfully used to contrast (andconfirm) ecosystem evaluations basedon ecological parameters” (Crespo

and Martínez 2003).Although closely allied to aesthetic

values, artistic values are distinguishedby the presence of human intentions,the purposeful act of creating objectsthat have their own separate beautyand value. The link between naturalbeauty and artistic inspiration is sowidespread that it hardly needs expla-nation. Suffice it to point out thatartists had a central role in launchingthe modern protected areas move-ment. The scenic wonders ofYellowstone were first made known tothe U.S. Congress and the generalpublic through the efforts of artists,most notably the landscape painterThomas Moran and the photographerWilliam Henry Jackson (Silliman2003). That link has never since beenbroken, and parks continue to fasci-nate visual artists, musicians, writers,dancers, and artisans, whether directlyas subject matter or indirectly as inspi-ration for collateral ideas.

Educational ValuesEvery protected area contains

things worth learning about. Noteveryone who visits a protected areacomes intent on gaining knowledge,but most do. At its best, this expecta-tion translates into an openness to newideas on the part of the visitor, aneagerness to expand one’s worldview.It is a subtle but critically importantvalue that protected areas provide topeople, and is part of why protectedareas are public institutions whoseeducational potential is on a par withthe world’s great museums and zoos.

Some of that potential is alreadybeing realized through guiding andinterpretive services. Parks that arepart of well-funded systems have pro-fessional educational staff that carryout these visitor service functions.


Staples of protected area educationinclude guided walks, wildlife discov-ery caravans, formal presentations tovisitors by park staff, programs aimedat schoolchildren and school groups,and many others. In addition, fixedmedia, such as interpretive signs andaudiovisual presentations, are exten-sively used to inform visitors. Mostprotected areas have visitor contactcenters, often housing a museum andauditorium, where basic orientationand more in-depth education aboutthe park take place. Generally theseprograms are organized according to aparkwide interpretive plan.

Increasingly, protected areas areforming partnerships with museumsand universities as a way to reach outto new audiences within the generalpublic and among academics. This isan important step because it integratesparks with society at large. Part ofevery protected area’s mission must beto address people’s needs and issuesrather than simply attempting to pre-serve nature in isolation from the larg-er social context. Consciously framingan educational mission as part of aprotected area’s management schemedoes this in a positive way. There arealways social and economic costsimposed on local communities when-ever a new protected area is estab-lished. Some of those costs can be off-set by employing local people whohave an intimate and long-standingknowledge of the park’s “educationalresources” as educators on the parkstaff.

Scientific Researchand Monitoring Values

Science itself is connected directlywith educational values because it is away of knowing, a process for learning(Moore 1993). It has been justly said

that “parks provide places to learnfrom personal experience,” and “per-sonal experience is among the mostpowerful and enduring ways for mostpeople to learn.... By giving multipleexamples of reality, parks connect peo-ple to abstract concepts emotionally.Such place-based learning offers mul-tiple stimuli that enhance opportuni-ties for diverse learners, clarifies newinsights, and strengthens retention.Parks generate passion for learning,with deep, personal, emotional con-nections born out of experience, andstimulate curiosity that is the bedrockfoundation of science” (Davis et al.2003).

Knowledge of nature begins withexploration, and exploration leads toinventories of the world around us thatare the hallmarks of any science,whether it be an orally transmitted sys-tem of traditional environmentalknowledge or the classical hypothesis-driven reasoning of Western scientificinquiry. Inventories inevitably lead tomonitoring, the systematic recordingof how nature changes over time. In asystem of traditional environmentalknowledge, monitoring knowledge istransmitted in narratives that describehow things used to be compared withthe present. In Western science, moni-toring is carried out according to writ-ten protocols tracking a set of environ-mental conditions carefully chosenbecause they are thought to signallarger changes in ecosystems. Theseconditions can be thought of as “envi-ronmental vital signs” (Davis et al.2003). Monitoring them within pro-tected areas helps makes those areasinto bellwethers for entire ecosystems.

Current scientific research in parkshas contributed many insights intotoday’s environmental problems, nonemore important than the realization


that local actions are enmeshed inglobal systems of almost staggeringcomplexity:

The contemporary conservationmovement and scientific ecologyhave interacted in the past twodecades to develop a better under-standing of and concern forecosystem-level properties thatoften function at scales far greaterthan park or preserve boundaries.The consequence of this has beenthat even in the largest and oldestnational parks, we now under-stand that most often the seriousecosystem stressors—the anthro-pogenic forces that lead to a lossof an untrammeled ecosystemretaining all of its parts—are not somuch from tourism and the inter-action of park visitors with nature,but represent forces operating atregional to global scales (Davis etal. 2003, citing Graber 1983 andGraber 1995).

One could argue that the principalvalue of scientific research and moni-toring in protected areas is to promotethis more far-reaching view of envi-ronmental challenges.

Peace ValuesUnder “peace values” fall three dis-

tinct functions of protected areas: fos-tering regional peace and stabilitythrough cooperative management oftransboundary protected areas, pro-viding “intercultural spaces” for thedevelopment of understandingbetween distinct cultures, and actingas places of “civic engagement” wheredifficult moral and political questionscan be constructively addressed.

The number of transboundary pro-tected areas has increased rapidly overthe past decade. As of 2001, therewere 169 transboundary complexescontaining 650 individual protectedareas involving 113 countries (Zbicz2001). Case studies of transboundary

protected areas show that there aremany benefits to be gained, includingincreased coordination between parkauthorities, thus eliminating needlessduplication of tasks; a greater tenden-cy to manage on an ecosystem scalerather than being constrained by artifi-cial boundaries; and decreased politi-cal tensions among countries.Symbolically, too, transboundary pro-tected areas are important as concreteexpressions of good will betweencountries (Hamilton et al. 1996;Sandwith et al. 2001).

Less formalized but no less impor-tant is the idea of protected areas asintercultural spaces. This does notmean that people are unwelcome tobring distinct values and worldviewsto parks. Quite the opposite: whereparks are conceived of as interculturalspaces, the authorities strive to makethe park a place where people can, ifthey wish, express their views andhave access to other views in a pro-ductive and respectful manner. Thiscan be accomplished through sensitiveand nuanced interpretive treatments ofcontroversial or conflicting subjectsthat are associated with the park, andby creating an atmosphere of open-ness and transparency within the parkauthority itself.

Closely related is the idea of civicengagement, a term borrowed fromthe museum profession. Civic engage-ment refers to a public institution,such as a museum or a protected area,actively seeking out a role in elucidat-ing controversial issues rather thansimply waiting to be caught up inthem. It does not mean that the insti-tution tries to set itself up as a self-appointed arbiter of controversy, nordoes it simply offer itself as an inter-cultural space for exchanges of differ-ing viewpoints. Instead, it makes a


conscious and sustained effort to seekout “an active, intentional role in pub-lic dialogue around the kinds of con-temporary issues that provoke multi-ple viewpoints” (Bacon et al. 1999). Itis a proactive rather than reactivestance. Civic engagement tries toshape the process of achieving agree-ment on controversial issues, althoughnot the outcome itself (Sevcenko2002). The U.S. National Park Servicehas embarked on a series of work-shops to see how civic engagement canbe applied to sites in the Americannational park system (USNPS 2002).

These sketches of the major intan-gible values of protected areas by nomeans exhaust the topic. We have leftaside consideration of the distinctionbetween intrinsic and instrumentalvalues and its ramifications for pro-tected area management (Harmon2003), the value of authenticity innature (Gobster and Hull 2001), thecultural and spiritual values of biodi-versity (Hamilton 1993; Ramakrish-nan et al. 1998; Posey 1999), gender-related issues on the use and percep-tion of public space (e.g., Day 2000)—the list goes on. But what has beensaid is enough to give an idea of thebreadth of intangible values and howthey are often connected with oneanother.

Why DoIntangible Values Matter?

Tourism to parks is a huge indus-try, and the economics of protectedarea systems has rightly become a crit-ical consideration for governments,policymakers, and park managers at alllevels. But the very success of parks astourist destinations obscures the realreasons why people choose to go tothem. In fact, they are popular precise-ly because they offer a clear-cut con-

trast to the getting and spending thatdrives so much of modern life. Theyoffer harried people a place to reflectand reinvigorate themselves. In thissense parks are a counterweight towhat might be called “everyday” val-ues. But more than this, the places andthings in parks carry intrinsic naturalvalues that exist without regard to anyform of human usefulness or purpose.There is evidently a connection ofsome kind between many of the valueswe as humans generate within our var-ious cultures, and the natural values“out there” in the environment, exist-ing apart from us. To judge from theever-increasing popularity of parks,this connection resonates in millionsof people. Here, then, is the ultimatesource of what we might call the “pro-tective impulse”: the motivated desireto safeguard special places. Sinceparks and other protected areas areuniversally recognized as critical com-ponents of conservation, the impor-tance of intangible values is clear: theyare at the heart of the protectiveimpulse that drives the modern con-servation movement.

The Papers in This IssueLet me conclude by summarizing

the papers that follow. “Managing theIntangible” is a manager’s-eye view ofthe practical challenges involved.Drawing on their experiences inAustralia and Canada, respectively,Anthony J. English (New South WalesNational Parks & Wildlife Service)and Ellen Lee (Parks Canada) providesome practical guidance on establish-ing management regimes for protectedareas that deal with intangible values.Next, three scientist–managers withthe U.S. National Park Service, GaryE. Davis, David M. Graber, and StevenA. Acker, lay out the case for parks as


indispensable places where the vitalsigns of the planet can be monitored intheir paper “National Parks asScientific Benchmark Standards forthe Biosphere; Or, How Are YouGoing to Tell How It Used to Be,When There’s Nothing Left to See?”This is followed by “Aesthetic Valuesand Protected Areas: A Story ofSymbol Preservation,” in whichEduardo Crespo de Nogueira (of theOrganismo Autónomo ParquesNacionales, Spain’s national parkagency) and Consuelo Martínez Flores(an artist) recount the ups and downs(and ups again) of aesthetics as a forcebehind the creation and developmentof protected areas. Then Bron Taylor

and Joel Geffen, both scholars of reli-gion with a special interest in its rela-tionship to environmentalism and sci-ence, offer several accounts of whathappens “when worlds collide” inprotected areas in a paper titled“Battling Religions in Parks andForest Reserves: Facing Religion inConflicts over Protected Places.”Finally, in “Life and the Nature ofLife—in Parks,” one of the world’sleading environmental philosophers,Holmes Rolston III, shows how thehuman experience of parks, though itoften begins in recreation, culminateswith a “re-creating, deepening experi-ence of the human spirit.”


AcknowledgmentsI’d like to acknowledge my debt to the contributors to The Full Value of Parks,

all of whom are listed in the references. Special thanks go to my co-editor, AllenPutney, both for his work on the book and for his leadership of the WCPA TaskForce on Cultural and Spiritual Values of Protected Areas. Thanks also go toGrazia Borrini-Feyerabend and the editors of Policy Matters for their permissionto adapt my paper for publication here.

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Defining the IntangibleIntangible values are by their

nature difficult to measure or define.Recognizing them presents a chal-lenge, as park management is com-monly focused on tangible outcomes.Goals associated with infrastructure,law enforcement, income generation,fire, and pest species are perhaps moreeasily articulated and translated intomanagement action. Because of this,the values held by a park agency cansometimes overshadow the intangibleones at the heart of a society’s attach-ment to place.

Intangible values are highly varied.They may include the importance that

an urban person places on the intrin-sic existence of a park. This personmay feel that the park adds somehowto the quality of the world in whichshe lives, as well as satisfying her beliefin the protection of areas, places, andspecies from development. At anotherlevel, an intangible value may be char-acterized by a group’s desire to see anevent or person commemoratedthrough the protection of a landscapeand its associated built heritage.Battlefields, historic sites, or what havebeen termed “places of shame” whereindigenous people have been massa-cred by colonizers may encapsulatethese values.


Anthony J. EnglishEllen Lee

Managing the IntangibleSanctuaries of Dreams

When many of us think about parks and protected areas, we envisagelandscapes that are associated with concepts such as beauty, space,and “getting away from it all.” For some, these areas are sanctuar-ies, not just for fauna and flora but for the dreams we hold for our

future quality of life (Hales 1989: 144). This seems a large burden to place onprotected areas, but many would subscribe to it.

Clearly, the aim of “conserving nature” does not encompass all of the valuesthat are associated with protected areas. This is evident in even a cursory glanceat the history of the park movement. Political forces linked to nationalism andRomantic concepts about well-being played a guiding role in the emergence ofparks and continue to influence their establishment (e.g., Everhardt 1983).Indeed, many scientists would argue that until recently, biodiversity conserva-tion has never been the primary force behind park creation (e.g., Nix 1997).

In reality, all protected areas are linked to complex intangible values that canbe difficult to define or even to reconcile with the core aims of park managementagencies. Some of these values, such as the nature lover’s desire to experiencequiet or the firsthand sighting of a rare bird, are often easily accommodated. Incontrast, others may have a historical, political, or cultural dimension that gen-erate significant emotion and debate. Such values may derive from people’s lifehistory or sense of their own identity and may lead them to question the wisdomof agency actions. This chapter considers whether management can in fact rec-ognize and provide for the multitude of intangible values that are tied to parklandscapes.

The concept of nonmaterial valuesintersects with physical places as wellas activities undertaken by people,either singly or in groups. These val-ues may be manifest in indigenouspeople’s attachment to a cultural siteor a nonindigenous family’s memoryof returning each year to the samecampsite for holidays. Intangible val-ues may be expressed in these cases byvisiting and using these places, there-by bringing people into direct contactwith the rules and regulations govern-ing a park.

Underlying this chapter is the keypoint that protected area boundariesare overlain on environments that havea history of human presence and inmany cases a recent or existing humanuse. This means they cannot be neatlyexcised from human memory or cul-turally defined ways of perceiving andvaluing landscapes. Parks are embed-ded in social, economic, and politicalsystems that ensure the values weplace on them are linked to ongoingdebates about our place in the world.

To some extent, the different class-es of protected areas recognize thepresence of diverse values and theneed for parks to cater to a wide rangeof activities or functions. It is not pos-sible, however, simply to exclude orerase values from an area of land byclassifying it in a particular way. Theongoing debate about “wilderness” incountries like Australia illustrates thiswell. This concept is opposed byindigenous groups who see these areasas having a human history and mean-ing. Equally, those who wish to light afire as part of their bush-campingexperience may question the rules ofwilderness area managers that forbidsuch an activity.

The difference in scale between theembers of a camper’s fire and the com-

plex ties that bind Aboriginal peopleto “country” may seem too great toallow us to include them in the sameparagraph. This seeming disjunction,however, encapsulates the fact thatpark management intersects withintangible values on many levels.

Can Intangible ValuesBe Managed?

Ever since the declaration of thefirst formal national park atYellowstone, approaches to managingprotected areas have evolved in com-plex ways. This can be seen in thedevelopment of park managementagencies around the globe. Today,many combine specialists in disci-plines including ecology, law, history,archaeology, and public education. Itwould appear that this evolution is aresponse to a number of key factorsthat reflect our changing understand-ing of parks. Chief among these inmany countries is our growing under-standing of ecosystem complexity andthe need to integrate protected areasinto the management of surroundingtenures and land uses.

This shift in understanding hasbeen matched by increased attentionto the intangible values of parks.Despite this, there is a danger that pro-tected area managers encourage oreven adopt the myth that their role isto deal primarily with the conservationof biodiversity and ecosystem health.Such a view, while attractive, is beliedby the day-to-day uses of parks andthe continued expression of complexattachments to their landscapes.

Such a view has come under pres-sure as parks have been established indeveloping countries where the luxuryof setting aside areas of land for “con-servation” simply does not exist. Here,park management has come face-to-face with the need to encompass con-


cepts such as resident communities,consumptive uses of wildlife, and therecognition of cultural obligations andinterests on land management. Themanagement of an iconic park such asRoyal Chitwan in Nepal is a goodexample (Nepal and Weber 1993).

In developed countries, similarissues have arisen in the face of landclaims and the expression of nativetitle interests by indigenous people. Insome cases, this has prompted theemergence of jointly managed parkswhere attempts are being made todevelop collaborative approaches thatsatisfy Western agendas and those oflocal people. Australia in particularhas attempted to tackle this issue in arange of parks, including Uluru-Kata-juta and Kakadu in the NorthernTerritory (DeLacy and Lawson 1997)and Mutawintji in New South Wales.This has forced park agencies toactively consider complex intangiblevalues and their relationship to practi-cal management activities such as thecontrol of fire and pest species and themessages that are conveyed to visitors.

In the same way, the concept of“protected landscapes” has emergedto challenge the view that parks can, orshould, be divorced from the historic,economic, and cultural systems inwhich they are embedded. Lucas(1992) points to the protected land-scapes of England, Wales, and Franceas examples where management mustaccommodate and value modifiedlands with mixed uses. The same con-cept is applied in the AnnapurnaConservation Area in Nepal (Stevens1997).

Overlying these developments isthe fact that the last few decades havewitnessed significant change in therelationship between the communityand government in many countries.

The growth of the environment move-ment is a central part of this shift andencapsulates the presence of increasedcommunity scrutiny of decision mak-ing. This has resulted in active combatin the courts and on the picket linethat has influenced the outcome ofelections. It is no surprise that therehas been a burgeoning literature onconcepts such as collaborative man-agement and community involvement(e.g., Hunt and Haider 2001). Landmanagement agencies around theworld have had to confront andrespond to these concepts. This, too,has brought intangible values somevisibility as engagement with commu-nity members automatically exposesmanagers to complex values-basedissues.

The management of intangible val-ues is brought into relief when we con-sider interaction between indigenouspeople and parks. The Western ap-proach is to describe, categorize, andsplit into different categories. The tra-ditional indigenous approach is oftenallegorical—to tell a story that illus-trates a value, rather than to clearlydescribe the value itself. A place willoften be significant because of manyoverlapping values, illustrated throughboth stories and repetitive activities—“It has everything we need to live,” or“It is where we come together eachyear.” But often the place is felt/seen tohave an intrinsic value in and of itself.“We come there every year because itis a special place” (not “It is a specialplace because we come there everyyear”). To describe a place in this wayis to see oneself within the place, aspart of it.

The act of “defining” intangiblevalues is itself not culturally neutral—itcomes from the Western scientific tra-dition. Nonetheless, if we do not de-


fine intangible values in some way, itwill be virtually impossible for them toinfluence management practices.

An implicit assumption in protect-ed area management has been that bymanaging the physical, we can avoidcultural or subjective biases. This isbased on a Western, scientificapproach to management. That is, ifwe can understand the physical prop-erties and relationships of naturalresources, we can manage them sus-tainably. The assumption lying behindthis approach is that the values ofthese resources lie purely in theirphysical nature. This also implies thatwe can understand the complex rela-tionships between resources and theforces of nature by understandingtheir physical nature alone. In itsextreme form, this is also an approachthat effectively removes human beingsand their actions from the ecosystemin order to make it “pure.” Theassumption in this case is that if wecan just remove all traces of humaninfluence from a protected area (e.g.,through environmental cleanup), itwill be pure, self-regulating, self-per-petuating wilderness.

Some of the weaknesses of thisapproach are obvious. If tangible/physical values are articulated sepa-rately from intangible values, it will beharder to develop management prac-tices that respect both kinds of valuesin an integrated fashion. Humanbeings are part of nature, and there arevirtually no places on Earth that havenot had human beings as part of their“natural” history. One person’swilderness is another person’s home-land. Each has its own intangible val-ues in terms of symbolism, aesthetics,cultural meaning, and identity.

Despite growing awareness of thischallenge, the concept of intangible

values seems to rarely surface in themission statements or policies of parkmanagement agencies. Understandingof what this concept means and how itinteracts with park landscapes is stillovershadowed by agency attention toissues that, while inseparable fromintangible values, are more easilyclothed in the language of science orbureaucracy.

Nuts and BoltsNumerous activities that can be

defined as core business by park agen-cies, such as fire and pest species man-agement, can be conducted collabora-tively with local people in a way thataffirms cultural knowledge and peo-ple’s intangible values. An obviousexample of this is the adoption ofAboriginal firing practices in parkmanagement programs in some partsof Australia (Parks Australia 1997).This activates nonmaterial valuesassociated with Aboriginal people’scustodial interests in country and thedesire to ensure that their culture isapplied and alive.

Local people can possess an inti-mate knowledge of fauna, flora, landuse history, fire, and ecosystemprocesses that has developed throughlong-standing interaction with a land-scape. Often this knowledge hascrossed generations through story andpractical experience. This knowledgecan be ignored or discarded by parkmanagers who are trained to see parksas tools to redress past human effectson the landscape. At one extreme,parks can be viewed as “wilderness”and in a sense devoid of human values,except for those that champion thepreservation of “nature.”

Many other activities, such as theprovision of educational tours andinformation, can actually foster a


response among park visitors that isenriching and significant. People maychoose to return to a park where theyhave had such an experience and, in asense, weave these visits into their lifeand personal history. People may alsoseek to gain understanding of othercultures or ways of life by visitingparks. In Australia, the concept of rec-onciliation is seen as an important goalof many parks, especially those wherevisitors can learn from Aboriginal peo-ple about how they view the land-scape.

To be effective, nonmaterial valuesneed to be explicitly acknowledged bypark managers, even where they areseen to conflict with the agency’s viewof why a park exists and how it shouldbe cared for. This can be as simple asusing the indigenous names for faunaand flora or significant landscape fea-tures. It can be as complex as main-taining evidence of human-modifiedlandscapes through ongoing interven-tion or finding resources and strate-gies to maintain historic structures.Table 1 attempts to explain how somenonmaterial values can be addressedby management actions. This is not a

definitive list, but it reveals the com-plexity of this issue.

Imagining Country: Intangible Values and the New

South Wales ExperienceThe experience of the New South

Wales National Parks and WildlifeService (NPWS), Australia, in comingto grips with intangible values in pro-tected areas can be used to illustratecommon issues and opportunities.Over the last five years, the agency hasinvested significant resources inresearch and planning that seek toengage the diverse intangible valueslinked to parks. While the effects ofthis work on park management are stillto be properly realized, it reveals someof the steps that an agency must pur-sue if it is to achieve this aim.

During this time, NPWS’s CulturalHeritage Division (CHD) has assessedintangible values in a range of con-texts. These include exploration of thevalues that Aboriginal people attach tobiodiversity and environmental health(English 2000, 2002) as well as theties that bind Europeans to structuresand landscapes that have been encom-


Nonmaterial value Management actionPsychological benefit or well-being generated by visiting apark landscape

Provision of access and infrastructure to support activities such as bushwalking, camping, and education in ways that respond to the needs ofdifferent groups and provide them with a valued experience

Protection of culturallandscapes and valued culturalplaces

Active assessment of the social and cultural meaning and significance of parklandscapes. This might combine active conservation of particular places,research into an area’s land use history, and recognition of people’sknowledge about the land and of the continued importance of interactionwith, and use of, valued places.

Reconciliation betweencultures

Joint management, cultural tourism, and education programs

Education and learning A blend of experiences for park visitors that reflect the multiple values of aprotected area

Cultural values andcommunity health

Continued access for indigenous people to carry out cultural practices andrecording of people’s history and memory

Intrinsic value of landscapeprocesses

Management of ecosystem health

Table 1. Some examples of how management can address nonmaterial values.

passed within park boundaries (Veale1997, 2001). Attention has also beengiven to the values placed on parks inthe Australia’s multicultural society bylooking at how Australians ofMacedonian (Thomas 2001) andVietnamese backgrounds perceive anduse park landscapes.

For many decades, intangible val-ues were largely ignored or else notexplicitly addressed by the NPWS inits approach to management. Thework of the CHD has changed this,primarily because it has shifted itselffrom an emphasis on archaeologicalinvestigations to those that engage liv-ing people and their connections toplace. This research has raised impor-tant issues that articulate intangiblevalues. At its core has been the attemptto “imagine country”—that is, to pic-ture the complex social and culturallinks between people and landscapesthat reside in memory, feelings, andbeliefs.

Protected Areasand First Nations in CanadaIn Canada, most legislation provid-

ing for the establishment of protectedareas focuses on natural values. In fact,natural parks are seen by many aswilderness areas, with as little humanimpact as possible. However, in thelast decade or so, partly as a result ofthe influence of northern Aboriginalgroups in the settlement of landclaims, this view has begun to change,and the cultural values of natural parksare beginning to be recognized.However, it is still the case that theidentification of areas for considera-tion of natural parks uses natural crite-ria identified by Euro-Canadian scien-tists for determining what areasshould be protected. Minor consider-ation may be given to boundary

adjustments to include importantarchaeological sites, and once the nat-ural area is identified, its cultural val-ues are then determined. Thus, cultur-al values are still seen as secondary inthis process.

On the other side of the coin, mostcultural heritage legislation, with itsbackground in Western historicalthinking, focuses on the identificationand designation of cultural heritagesites and is particularly suited to deal-ing with built heritage, such as build-ings, and archaeological sites.Intangible cultural values are consid-ered significant, but natural values arerarely considered in the initial identifi-cation stages, and then only as beingcomplementary to or a subset of thecultural values. Most natural parks arelarge geographical areas. Most culturalheritage sites are small geographicalareas. In both cases, the legislative andpolicy process for the establishmentand management of these parks andsites reflect this reality. When we iden-tify places with both cultural and natu-ral values, giving their cultural andnatural elements equal attention, wemust move to a more integrative con-cept of protected areas, such as cultur-al landscapes. Cultural landscapes,some of which are quite large by tradi-tional historic site standards, havecharacteristics that do not fit very wellwith the sets of legislative and policyprocesses and mechanisms for eithernatural parks or cultural heritage sites.They do, however, provide the inte-gration of intangible and tangible, andnatural and cultural, values.

Table 2 compares and contrastsprotected areas, historic sites, and cul-tural landscapes in terms of evaluationcriteria, size of geographical area,whether subsurface protection isneeded, and whether natural and cul-


tural values are balanced in the man-agement of the area.

The use of traditional natural parksor cultural heritage site designationscan put considerable stress on com-munities who would like to have theirspecial places recognized and protect-ed from inappropriate development,and bureaucrats who are faced withtrying to force-fit park or site propos-als into legislative or policy molds thatare not really meant for the purpose at

hand.This is made worse in a situation

where Aboriginal communities do nothave adequate land tenure to protectthese places themselves. On the otherhand, governments who have landmanagement responsibilities mustanswer to many constituencies,including the heritage and environ-mental lobbies, as well as developmentand industrial sectors whose maininterest is resource extraction, such as


Protected NaturalArea (e.g., NationalPark)

Historic Sites Cultural Landscapes

Evaluationcriteria

Natural values Cultural or historicvalues

Cultural and naturalvalues

Size ofgeographical area

Large geographicalareas to protectecosystems,watersheds

Small geographicalareas to protectbuildings, buildingcomplexes, andarchaeological sites

Large geographicalareas to encompass allvalues

Subsurfaceprotection

Statutory protectionof subsurface

No protection ofsubsurface

Subsurface protectionmay be needed

Tangible orintangible values

Tangible andintangible valuesrelating to naturalfeatures

Tangible andintangible valuesrelating tohistoric/culturalfeatures

Tangible andintangible values forboth natural andcultural features andthe landscape as awhole

Balance of naturaland culturalvalues in areamanagement

Cultural or historicalvalues secondary

Natural valuessecondary

Cultural and naturalvalues integrated

Table 2. Comparison of protected natural areas, historic sites, and cultural landscapes.

lumbering and mining or hydroelec-tric development.

Parks, protected areas, protectedlandscapes, cultural landscapes, andworking landscapes are terms thatdescribe a range of places with lesseror greater amounts of human interven-tion. The term used in any particularcase generally relates to the reasons forwhich the place is “set aside” and howit is used. All of these places haveintangible values ascribed to them byboth local and nonlocal people andgroups—beauty is in the eye of thebeholder.

Clashes of values can occurbetween the intangible values of differ-ent cultural groups or between differ-ent interest groups—they simplyreflect the different values thesegroups place on the protected area inquestion. There are various ways ofdealing with these differences. Often,in the Canadian situation, protectedarea planners work for government(federal, provincial, or territorial) andare expected to reflect broad societalvalues in the regimes established. Forexample, national parks are set aside“to protect for all time representativenatural areas of Canadian significancein a system of national parks, and toencourage public understanding,appreciation, and enjoyment of thisnatural heritage so as to leave it unim-paired for future generations” (ParksCanada 2001a).

“Most lands have some kind ofinterest or commitment for uses suchas oil and gas development, mining,hydro-electricity, forestry, agricultureand private recreation. Land-use con-flicts and jurisdictional issues will haveto be resolved in cooperation with theprovinces, territories, Aboriginal peo-ples, and all interested parties includ-ing local residents” (Parks Canada

2001b).Park management plans have to

deal with the conflicting values of allsuch interested parties. Since the mid-1980s in Canada, with a renewed fed-eral government policy on the settlingof comprehensive land claims withAboriginal peoples, managementregimes for national parks haveevolved considerably. Pressure fromAboriginal peoples for recognition oftheir cultural, natural, and economicinterests in protected areas has meantthat the objectives for protected areacreation have broadened to includecultural and intangible values, as wellas natural values. In some parts ofCanada (in the North in particular),limited land entitlements combinedwith the opportunity for involvementin cooperative protected area manage-ment regimes have led someAboriginal groups to view the estab-lishment of protected areas in a posi-tive light. In such cases, the creation ofprotected areas provides an expandedarea of influence and traditional usefor Aboriginal peoples. Of the forty-one national parks and reserves inCanada, more than one-third haveadvisory boards of some sort, with sig-nificant Aboriginal, and in some caseslocal non-Aboriginal, representation.

However, there are also exampleswhere the concept of a protected areais an alien one to cultural groups whohave a holistic view of the landscapeand who have difficulty in setting partof the landscape aside and treating itdifferently from other areas. In anational system of protected area man-agement, a monolithic approach to themanagement of protected areas willmake it difficult to incorporate intangi-ble values into management practices.In fact, the question has been asked,“By creating guidelines and giving


certain areas an international designa-tion, are we adding to the homoge-nization of landscapes and cultures?”(IUCN 1999: 41).

Values-Based Management/Knowledge-Based Management

Values-based management hasrecently become a popular term, par-ticularly in the field of the conserva-tion of cultural heritage. Here, in theo-ry, the evaluation of a protected area orof a cultural resource will help deter-mine the nature of its value, which willin turn be used to determine how itshould be managed and what about itshould be protected and respected.

Knowledge-based management is aterm frequently used to describe a sci-entifically based management regime.While the values- and knowledge-based management concepts are notidentical, neither are they contradicto-ry or mutually exclusive. A merging ofthese two concepts might go a longway toward dealing appropriately withintangible values from different cultur-al perspectives.

If we wish to manage protectedareas in a way that respects and sus-tains intangible values, we must do itcollaboratively and be conscious ofour thought processes and our cultur-al biases. In addition, often the way toelicit traditional knowledge or valuesis not at brainstorming sessions inmeeting rooms or through scientificanalysis. The landscape is the book inwhich the values are written, andbeing on and in the land is far morelikely to elicit intangible valuesthrough experience, reminiscence,and storytelling. How to capture thesevalues in such a way that respects theirintangible nature but still allows themto be analyzed and understood andtransmitted into management prac-

tices is the challenge. In many cases,the recording of place names and theassociated stories can lead towarddetermining what managementregimes or actions would be appropri-ate. This is because the stories oftencarry implicit or explicit advice onhow people should behave toward theland, the animals, plants, and eachother. The landscape is alive withmeaning, and to be able to read it andunderstand it, people must interactwith it. Place name studies and oralhistory projects are an excellent way tobegin to articulate the intangible val-ues of a local Aboriginal communityrelated to a protected area , as well asto begin to understand at least oneperspective on how the landscape hasevolved to become what it is today.

Sustainability is a concept useful indefining objectives for protected areamanagement. We can speak of the sus-tainability of values, the sustainabilityof landscape(s), and the sustainabilityof management practices. One way toexamine management practices is totry to determine what needs to bedone to ensure the sustainability ofintangible values. We should notunderestimate the challenge impliedby trying to understand change andevolution when it comes to dealingwith protected areas and intangiblevalues. We all know that landscapesevolve over time, as do ecosystems andcultural systems. We are beginning toapproach an understanding of howlandscapes and ecosystems havebecome what they are today, but ourview is limited with regard to under-standing how much and what kind ofchange is desirable or acceptable forthe future. In other words, what arethe limits of acceptable change? Wewill need to determine measures ofhealth or sustainability and establish


regular monitoring programs to deter-mine the effects of our managementpractices.

ConclusionTo sum up, these are some princi-

ples to follow to establish managementregimes for protected landscapes thatdeal with intangible values:

• The determination of values andthe resulting management deci-sions must be participatory andinvolve local people in a significantway.

• A thorough recording of communi-ty knowledge, oral histories, andplace names is a good way to artic-ulate intangible values.

• A cookie cutter approach cannot beused. Management decisions mustflow from an understanding of all ofthe values of the protected land-scape, both tangible and intangible.

• Values that appear to be in conflictmust be carefully examined andreconstructed to determinewhether there is really a conflictand, if so, exactly what it is.

• Once values are clearly articulatedand the appropriate managementactions are determined, ways ofmeasuring success and changemust be identified and adopted.Monitoring and follow-up are

essential to achieving sustainableprotected landscapes.

• It is important to define a movingscale of limits of acceptable changeto reflect natural and cultural evolu-tion and changing values.

The management of nonmaterial orintangible values presents many chal-lenges. It requires park agencies to rec-ognize previous, and continuing, asso-ciations between people and parksthat have been generated throughcommunity and family history, person-al aspirations, and diverse ways of per-ceiving the meaning or significance oflandscapes.

Much has been said of the need tomanage parks not as islands in a sea ofdevelopment but as part of a patch-work of land tenures and uses (e.g.,Nix 1997). Managing and understand-ing nonmaterial values involves a simi-lar philosophy. The “core” aims ofpark creation and “nature” conserva-tion must be set within a social andcultural context, and this requires usto understand the dynamic interac-tions between people and place thatare embedded in the very fabric ofprotected areas. Conservation itselfneeds to be understood as a culturallydefined activity, one that is open tobiases that reflect the distribution ofpower within human societies.


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———. 2002. The Sea and the Rock Gives Us a Feed: Mapping and Managing Gumbaingirr WildResource Use Places. Hurstville, NSW: New South Wales National Parks and Wildlife Service.

English, A. J., J. Erskine, and S. Veale. 1997. Cultural heritage assessment of Goobang NationalPark, central western NSW. Unpublished report by the New South Wales National Parks andWildlife Service to the Wellington and Peak Hill Local Aboriginal Land Councils.

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1

National parks and equivalent pro-tected areas potentially hold many val-ues for people. An early twentieth-cen-tury champion of utilitarian conserva-tion, President Theodore Roosevelt,declared, “There is nothing morepractical in the end than the preserva-tion of beauty,” upon seeing coastalredwoods for the first time (Morris2001). Arguably, the most important

value of national parks is to providehuman happiness. In a utilitariansense, the persistence of nature inparks administered to “conserve thescenery and the natural and historicobjects and the wild life therein and toprovide for the enjoyment of the samein such manner and by such means aswill leave them unimpaired for theenjoyment of future generations”


Gary E. DavisDavid M. GraberSteven A. Acker

National Parks as Scientific BenchmarkStandards for the Biosphere; Or, Howare You Going to Tell How It Used to

Be, When There’s Nothing Left to See?How are you going to tell how it used to be,

when there’s nothing left to see?

At first, national parks were hard to see because there was so little dif-ference between resource conditions in the parks and in the wild areasaround them. Now some parks can be recognized from outer spacebecause humans dominate the land around them so completely.

Examples bracket the United States from Olympic National Park on the north-west coast of Washington to Everglades National Park in southeastern Florida.Nevertheless, many national parks are becoming hard to see again because theyare small pieces of fragmented landscapes, overrun by invasive alien species, andjust as stressed by altered air, water, and soil as the adjacent lands (Grumbine1990; Vitousek et al. 1997). In the ocean, so-called marine protected areas pro-claim “protection” in their titles (e.g., park, refuge, reserve, and sanctuary), butfishing in them is managed virtually the same as it is everywhere else so there areno discernable differences between fish populations in or out of parks (Jacksonet al. 2001; Beets and Rogers 2001). Even in the parks, only the ancient hunter-gatherer’s strategy of serial depletion based on endless sources of new speciesand territories sustains ocean fisheries, while exploited populations collapse andecosystems decay into simplified remnants filled with ghosts (Dayton et al. 1998;Diamond 1997; Jackson et al. 2001). The U.S. National Park System containsspecial places saved by the American people so that all may experience thenation’s heritage—yet even in these most special places unimpaired nature is rap-idly disappearing. In this chapter, we will describe potential values of nationalparks and equivalent protected areas to science and society, discuss forces thatthreaten those values, and suggest how monitoring ecological vital signs (Figure1) could help mitigate the effects of those forces.


Figure 1. Environmental monitoring, such as collecting hydrology and weather data, is part ofthe management routine at Everglades National Park, Florida. National Park Servicephoto.

should yield the greatest happiness forthe greatest number of people. If ade-quately protected, national parks alsohave great potential value for scientificinvestigations of the biosphere—thelife support system of Earth. Protectedplaces can serve as environmentalbenchmark standards for comparisonswith more altered parts of nature, andthey can help scientists differentiateanthropogenic from other environ-mental changes. Parks can be reser-voirs of wild genetic diversity and refu-gia that rebuild populations of endan-gered species and restore the integrityand resiliency of disarticulated ecosys-tems. They are special places in whichscientists can unravel the mysteries ofnatural and human history, evolution-ary adaptation, ecosystem dynamics,and other natural processes (NationalResearch Council 1992).

Parks provide truly unique oppor-tunities. They combine the power ofplace with the last, best remnants ofnature least dominated by humans.Science is a way of knowing, a processfor learning (Moore 1993). Personalexperience is among the most power-ful and enduring ways for most peopleto learn. Parks provide places to learnfrom personal experience, therebyrendering the abstract real. By givingmultiple examples of reality, parksconnect people to abstract conceptsemotionally. Such place-based learn-ing offers multiple stimuli thatenhance opportunities for diverselearners, clarifies new insights, andstrengthens retention. Parks generatepassion for learning, with deep, per-sonal, emotional connections born outof experience, and stimulate curiositythat is the bedrock foundation of sci-ence.

National parks can be specialplaces for science only if nature is

treated differently in them than inother places. In the United States, atfirst people thought they could protectparks by building virtual walls aroundthem (Sellars 1997). Early park man-agers based their actions on beliefs ofwhat park visitors wanted and howthey thought ecosystems functioned(Davis and Halvorson 1996). Theybelieved that physical environmentalfactors, not biological interactions,largely determined ecosystem struc-ture and that people came to parks tosee the forests and wildlife and tocatch fish. Since fires burned theforests, predators ate the elk and deerthat visitors came to see, and pelicansate the trout people sought to catch, itseemed clear that park stewardshipcalled for fire suppression and preda-tor control. So to protect the parks,park stewards killed wolves and coy-otes, crushed white pelican eggs, anddid their best to put out forest fires(Varley and Schullery 1996). Todaythese actions seem naive at best. Theseearly perceptions changed as scientistsdiscovered the often counterintuitiveways in which ecosystems function. Itis now clear that infrequent, extremenatural events, such as hurricanes,hundred-year freezes, and “cata-strophic” forest fires, do not destroyecosystems but are essential to sustaincoral reefs, coniferous forests, andother ecosystems (Dayton and Tegner1984). Ecologists also found thatpredators, far from eliminating preypopulations, were essential for sus-taining diverse communities (Paine1994). Removing predators fromecosystems, either experimentally oraccidentally, triggered cascades ofunanticipated consequences in parksthat threatened the very resources andvalues that the stewards sought to pre-serve.


What changed? Knowledge ofplace changed. Scientific knowledgeand understanding of place are thecornerstones of park stewardship.Effective park stewardship dependson continuing improvements ofknowledge and understanding ofparks from scientific iterations of mon-itoring and experimentation (manage-ment actions) that frame, test, and fal-sify myriad hypotheses. Only with thisimproved understanding of ecosystemstructure and functioning can parkstewards hope to restore the integrityand resilience of impaired parks, toprotect nature unimpaired in parksand to mitigate internal and trans-boundary threats, or to connect peo-ple to their heritage with sufficientimpact to engender the public com-mitment needed to preserve parksunimpaired for the enjoyment offuture generations. This knowledge ofnature begins with curiosity, explo-ration, and inventories of the worldaround us that are the hallmarks of sci-ence. Static inventories inevitably leadto monitoring to discover, describe,and understand how nature changes intime and space. Monitoring environ-mental vital signs of parks is the begin-ning of scientific stewardship that willdetermine the success or failure ofconservation in the twenty-first centu-ry and the survival or demise of natureas the Earth’s biodiversity is threat-ened by human domination.

ChangingManagement Approaches

As cultural constructs existingwithin the matrix of their time andplace, the purposes and values ofnational parks and protected areasvary from one place to another andhave evolved over time. The percep-tion of what jeopardizes those values

has likewise evolved—not only as aconsequence of improving scientificknowledge or demonstrably alteredcircumstances within and surround-ing the parks themselves but alsobecause of their evolving context. Inthe United States, this has been strik-ingly illustrated by the changes overthe past half-century in what are com-monly called “threats”—or “stressors”in modern ecosystem vernacular.

During the time when what largelydistinguished the classic large westernnational parks from their landscapematrix was the presence of a recreationinfrastructure (i.e., roads, visitor cen-ters, signs, and rangers), those threatswere largely identified as the local,particular attributes that interferedwith the enjoyment of visitors as theyrecreated and enjoyed nature on theirincreasingly civilized terms. As indi-cated earlier, in the early decades ofthe twentieth century those mightinclude predators (or poachers) prey-ing on desirable viewing species suchas deer, birds consuming catchablefish, or the very absence of infrastruc-ture needed to visit and comfortablyenjoy what the parks had to offer.

By the 1950s, those same Americanparks had begun to differ strikinglyfrom rapidly changing surroundinglands—even those lands as yet unde-veloped but dedicated to resourceextraction. There was a growing senti-ment among conservation writers thatnational parks should represent somesort of “vignette of primitiveAmerica.” This was reflected in a com-missioned report by a senior commit-tee of wildlife biologists (Leopold etal. 1963) to the U.S. secretary of theinterior. Moreover, the science of thetime reflected the assumption that nat-ural, wild ecosystems tended to behomeostatic and thus would persist in


a relatively constant state over time ifthey were not compromised. Thus, itwould be possible, through intelligent,restrained management, to providepark visitors and society with frag-ments of a wild, American past thatprovided not only conservation butthe romance of history. Interestingly,the unraveling of this paradigm of nat-ural stability, and its replacement byone of dynamism and even periodiccatastrophe, was presaged in one ofseveral scientific reports to the U.S.National Park Service as early as 1963(NRC 1963). Both of these reportsnotably emphasized the preeminentvalue of national parks as preserves ofwild nature that retained all of its orig-inal parts over their value as “pleasur-ing grounds” for tourist recreation.

The wilderness movement inAmerica, which began with a smallgroup of scientists in the 1930s andculminated in the passage of theWilderness Act in 1964 (establishing anew, stringent standard of protectionon now more than forty millionhectares of public lands, includingmany national parks, in the UnitedStates), was a distinctive culturalthread that was ultimately to have pro-found and continuing interactionswith the perceived values of parks andpreserves. The founders of this move-ment — Robert Marshall, Aldo Leo-pold, and Olaus Murie—were alltrained field scientists who had cometo recognize that “untrammelednature” was fast disappearing from ourplanet (Leopold 1925, 1949; Marshall1930), and at great cost—theybelieved—to the human spirit and theweb of living things with which weshare the planet. Although in theirexhortative and popular writings theyemphasized the critical importance oflarge blocks of completely wild lands,

roadless and lacking all mechanizedtransport, as a sanctuary for thehuman soul and a place where primi-tive enjoyment could be pursued, theyalso believed that the unimpededinteractions of natural ecosystemswere of critical scientific value, as wellas possessing innate value to and ofthemselves. There is nothing in theWilderness Act, however, thatacknowledges the possibility of distur-bance from outside wilderness thatcould lead to a compromise or loss ofthose values.

The scientific reports to the U.S.National Park Service of the 1960s, aswell as the changing cultural matrix inwhich they occurred—which pro-duced Earth Day and far broader (ifless personally intimate) interest innature conservation—ultimately con-tributed to a significantly greater con-cern for preserving all “nature” inAmerican national parks. For the firsttime, this explicitly included naturethat did not necessarily offer scenicsplendor or recreational opportuni-ties. But the science that supportedsuch conservation was largely auteco-logical and confined within parkboundaries. Contemporaneously, val-ues emerging from some of the samesprings as the wilderness movementled American parks to seek to elimi-nate traces of artifice and anthro-pogenic influence on park landscapes.This has included the removal ofstructures, the naturalization of camp-ing sites, and regulations to protectfragile features and to reduce crowd-ing and social conflicts in park “back-country” areas.

The contemporary conservationmovement and scientific ecology haveinteracted in the past two decades todevelop a better understanding of andconcern for ecosystem-level proper-


ties that often function at scales fargreater than park or preserve bound-aries. The consequence of this hasbeen that even in the largest and oldestnational parks, we now understandthat most often the serious ecosystemstressors—the anthropogenic forcesthat lead to a loss of an untrammeledecosystem retaining all of its parts—are not so much from tourism and theinteraction of park visitors with naturebut represent forces operating atregional to global scales (Graber 1983,1995).

For example, in many of the nation-al parks in the American Southwest,these “Four Horsemen of theApocalypse” typically include:• Insularization and habitat frag-

mentation. Land use changes out-side park boundaries have led toincomplete home ranges for someanimal populations, or populationstoo small to sustain themselvesgenetically within a park—resultingin genetic impoverishment or extir-pations. It has also led to the inva-sions of alien plants and animals,sometimes outcompeting nativeorganisms or leading to fundamen-tal changes in ecosystem processes.

• Atmospheric contamination. Re-search on the presence and effectsof acid precipitation, ozone,nitrates, and sulfates, in particular,has demonstrated that these cansignificantly alter the competitivebalance within an ecosystem, fre-quently reducing system produc-tivity and often favoring “weedy”species. Air pollution can also havea significant aesthetic effect on visi-tor enjoyment in national parks.

• Loss of native fire regimes. In xericwestern shrublands, woodlands,and forests, fire has often been theprincipal ecosystem architect.

Intensive research over the pastthree decades, especially in thenational parks, has demonstratedthat the frequency, intensity, andextent of fire has been radicallyaltered by fire suppression, chang-ing land use, the loss of customaryaboriginal ignitions, the introduc-tion of alien plant species and con-sequent changes in system flamma-bility, and sometimes the introduc-tion of new sources of ignition,such as automobiles and cigarettes.

• Climate change. Rapid changes inseasonal temperatures, in the tim-ing and extent of precipitation, andeven in the chemical compositionof the atmosphere are expected toinduce profound changes in bio-logical communities over much ofthe planet within this century. Asparks and preserves have come toincreasingly resemble islands in analien sea, they will be less able tofunction as reservoirs of biodiversi-ty when native biota no longer findappropriate environmental niche,and they introduced cosmopolitanspecies of broad tolerance arrive tocompete with them.A decision of utmost importance

will be facing preserve managers, theirscientific advisers, and the public whosupports parks in the near future: Towhat extent will parks and preservesbe intentionally managed to mitigateagainst these grand stressors and toprotect native biodiversity to theextent feasible? Or will we apply awildness standard that accepts changeand loss in exchange for a minimum ofvisible anthropogenic intrusion intothese last remaining bits of wild nature(Graber 1985, 1995)?

Monitoring:Species or Ecosystems?

Intact ecosystems are more than the


sum of their parts. Processes andforces that bind the parts into a systemproduce synergies and properties thatthe individual parts do not possesswhen simply collected together.Conservation strategies based on a fewparts of systems, such as endangeredspecies, may be effective. As a result,conservation strategies can be testedin national parks that protect wholeecosystems, but they cannot be testedin disarticulated, stressed, or frag-mented systems or on isolated individ-ual parts of systems.

Although stewardship goals forfederal lands are increasingly focusedon the status of entire ecosystemsrather than individual species (Noss1993; Franklin 1995; Woodward et al.1999), management and monitoringare likely to continue to focus on bothindividual species and more integra-tive parameters. Woodward et al.(1999) discuss three types of speciesoften included in monitoring efforts:“target species” of social and/or politi-cal significance, “bioassay species”that are responsive to particular typesof contamination or other stresses, and“indicator species” that shed light onbasic ecological processes. Fleishmanet al. (2001) review the utility of“umbrella species” in conservation(i.e., species whose protection isintended to extend to a much broadergroup of species). They conclude thatumbrella species mostly pertain tofairly narrow taxonomic bounds (e.g.,a conservation strategy based on anumbrella bird species is not likely toprotect many butterfly species).Efforts to develop a conservation strat-egy for forests of the Pacific Northwestillustrate the point. Although theendangered northern spotted owl(Strix occidentalis caurina) occupieslarge home ranges primarily within

old-growth forest, a strategy based onthe owl would leave out many keycomponents of biological diversity inthe region. Thus, there is a need for aconservation strategy emphasizing abroad array of taxa and habitats (Noss1993; Franklin 1995). For a variety ofpolitical and scientific reasons, moni-toring of protected areas may includeboth high-profile species and basicecosystem measurements (Woodwardet al. 1999). Thus, in addition to thecritical role of documenting normalvariation of natural systems that arestill nearly pristine (Schindler 1987;Noss 1993), monitoring and researchin protected areas may help us under-stand how single species versusecosystem approaches compare inproviding the information needed forstewardship.

Vital Signs MonitoringThe primary applied uses of eco-

logical monitoring are to guide andevaluate stewardship activities, to pro-vide early warnings of abnormal con-ditions, to identify possible causes ofabnormal conditions, and to helpframe research questions to resolveconservation issues (Davis 1993). Inplaces such as Channel IslandsNational Park in California, monitor-ing demographics of selected speciesand related physical environmentalfactors as surrogates for the vital func-tions of ecosystems over twenty yearshas helped• control and eliminate invasive alien

species; • detect and mitigate effects of chem-

ical pollution; • recognize and change unsustain-

able uses, including fishery man-agement policies; and

• develop and evaluate populationand ecosystem restoration method-


ologies.Let’s consider some specific exam-

ples of applications of environmentalvital signs monitoring information topark stewardship issues.

Alien species constitute an ever-increasing threat to the park. Stewardsof the California Channel Islands haveused an environmental “Vital Signs”monitoring program to direct andevaluate removal of several alienspecies, including burros on SanMiguel Island, European hares onSanta Barbara Island, feral pigs onSanta Rosa Island, and South Africaniceplant on Anacapa Island. Beforeinstituting monitoring programs, erad-ication efforts were sporadic and inef-fective. Numerous efforts were madeto remove feral rabbits from SantaBarbara Island in the 1950s and 1960sby hunting and spreading poison bait,but none was successful until the VitalSigns program provided specificinformation about the effectiveness ofvarious population control methods(trapping vs. hunting), rabbit popula-tion trends, and reliable cost and timeestimates for complete eradication. Byreducing the uncertainly of successthrough monitoring, the eradicationprogram gained enough support tosustain the effort long enough to suc-ceed.

Even before the Vital Signs pro-gram began, monitoring wildlife pop-ulations in the park provided an earlywarning of regional pollution withglobal consequences. Monitoringreproduction and recruitment inCalifornia brown pelican rookeries onAnacapa Island identified pesticide(DDT) pollution in the SouthernCalifornia Bight and provided suffi-cient time to ban DDT and restorepelican productivity (Anderson andGress 1983). Today, the park’s Vital

Signs program indicates clearly thatDDT is still a problem in coastalecosystems, as evidenced in continu-ing reproductive difficulties experi-enced by peregrine falcons and baldeagles (Detrich and Garcelon 1986).The Vital Signs program also indi-cates that progress is being made,which thereby encourages people(society) to continue abatement activi-ties.

Vital Signs programs also helpdecide when human intervention inpark ecosystem dynamics is appropri-ate, such as when to suppress forestfires or let them burn. The ChannelIslands National Park rocky intertidalmonitoring protocol was modified andapplied to Cabrillo National Mon-ument, in San Diego, California, in1989. In 1992, when the San Diegomunicipal sewage treatment effluentdischarge pipe broke and dumped six-teen billion gallons of treated effluentinto the sea less than a kilometer fromthe monument’s monitored tide poolsover a two-month period, many peo-ple were rightfully concerned aboutmarine life in the tide pools and adja-cent kelp forests (Tegner et al. 1995).Objective information from prespillmonitoring established clearly that theeffluent had no immediate negativeeffect on the fifteen vital sign taxamonitored. Closing the tide pool areato visitation during those two months,in order to protect visitors from poten-tial health hazards in the effluent, actu-ally relieved trampling and other visi-tor-related disturbances, which wasreflected by increased abundance inmost vital sign taxa.

The Vital Signs program in thiscase saved unnecessary expensive liti-gation that often occurs without actualknowledge and with a belief that dam-age is self-evident in such situations.


The two-month closure associatedwith the effluent spill constituted alarge environmental experimentunlikely to be conducted intentionally.Since the Vital Signs program was inplace, it was possible to measure theeffects of the event and separate thelonger-term trends in populationsassociated with regional environmen-tal events, such as El Niño. For exam-ple, the chronic loss of California mus-sels (Mytilus californicus) and featherboa kelp (Egregia menzesii) that hadbeen recorded for three years beforethe effluent spill continued at the samerate during and after the spill, whileground cover of ephemeral algae andsea grass (Phyllospadix spp.) in-creased dramatically (Engle and Davis2001).

Many fisheries are managed andevaluated largely on the basis of fish-ery-dependent landings data that maynot be related to changes in fishedpopulations. Fishery-independentmonitoring provides essential corrob-orative information for fishery man-agers (Botsford et al. 1997). Serialdepletion of five species of abalone(Haliotis spp.) and then a sea urchin(Strongylocentrotus franciscanus) tosupport a commercial diving fleet wasobscured by ambiguous landings datain southern California before monitor-ing data were available (Dugan andDavis 1993). As a result, fishingexhausted abalone populations beforefishery management policies could bechanged and drove at least one speciesto the verge of extinction (Davis et al.1996).

Political systems are frequentlyfrozen into inaction by uncertainty(Wurman 1990). Reliable fishery-independent data from Vital Signsallowed the political process to workby reducing uncertainty regarding

abalone population status. TheCalifornia Fish and Game Commis-sion and the state legislature closedfive abalone fisheries to prevent loss ofcritical brood stock and to facilitateand reduce the costs of rebuildingdepleted populations statewide onlyafter Vital Signs data confirmed immi-nent abalone population collapses—collapses that were implied by declin-ing fishery landings but contested byfishing interests.

Vital Signs methodologies are cur-rently being used to test a variety ofdifferent abalone population restora-tion techniques at the CaliforniaChannel Islands (Davis 2000).Ecological monitoring also providedearly warning of a black abalone (H.cracherodii) population collapse(Richards and Davis 1995). The ulti-mate population collapse was appar-ently caused by infectious disease insmall, dense, but fragmented popula-tions. Monitoring provided sufficientinformation, early enough, to protectdisease-resistant individuals from fish-ery harvest and to ensure survival ofanother generation.

The Channel Islands National ParkVital Signs program has become aprototype for many other nationalparks and other agencies, and it cat-alyzed a national Vital Signs programfor the U.S. National Park System.This approach has been used success-fully in a wide variety of ecological set-tings with many Delphi experts,including deserts (Organ Pipe CactusNational Park and Lake MeadNational Recreation Area), mountains(Great Basin, Lassen Volcanic, andNorth Cascades national parks), andthe New England coast (AcadiaNational Park). Other U.S. nationalpark units emulating the ChannelIslands model include Virgin Islands


(U.S. Virgin Islands), Dry Tortugas(Florida), Denali (Alaska), GreatSmoky Mountains (Tennessee–NorthCarolina), Shenandoah (Virginia),Olympic (Washington), a cluster ofsmall prairie parks in the Midwest, anda cluster of parks on the ColoradoPlateau. Based on the experiencegained in prototype park programs,the U.S. National Park Service plansto implement Vital Signs programs in

32 networks covering 270 nationalpark system areas with significant nat-ural resources. Only with the informa-tion acquired by Vital Signs programscan national parks be adequatelyunderstood, restored, maintained, andprotected so that current and futuregenerations can enjoy their wonders,receive their inspiration, and reap thevalues of their unimpaired ecosys-tems.


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Steven A. Acker, National Park Service Columbia-Cascades Support Office,909 First Avenue, Seattle, Washington 98104; [email protected]

1

Because of the importance assignedto them in many countries, aestheticvalues have been reflected in federallaws and other legal instruments forthe protection of nature, though their

influence has been reduced in morerecent times. Spain, for instance, is anexample of the chronological evolu-tion of this phenomenon. It was one ofthe first countries to establish national


Eduardo Crespo de NogueiraConsuelo Martínez Flores

Aesthetic Values and ProtectedAreas: A Story of Symbol

PreservationNo place is a place until it has had a poet.

—Wallace Stegner

Stay on this good fire-mountain and spend the night among the stars. Watchtheir glorious bloom until the dawn, and get one more baptism of light. Then,

with fresh heart, go down to your work, and whatever your fate, under whateverignorance or knowledge you may afterward chance to suffer, you will rememberthese fine, wild views, and look back with joy to your wanderings in the blessed

old Yellowstone Wonderland.—John Muir

A thing is right when it tends to preserve the integrity, stability, and beauty ofthe biotic community. It is wrong when it tends otherwise.

—Aldo Leopold

❖

There seems to be agreement that aesthetic factors have been of basicimportance in the historical processes of land protection. These factorshave had a decisive influence on the selection process itself and subse-quently have oriented criteria for management. In the words of Múgica

and De Lucio (1996: 229): “Among the traditional reasons for protecting natu-ral areas, landscape features have undoubtedly played a major role. Landscapeevokes deep emotions and strong attitudes towards conservation.” Perception-based criteria became so dominant during the initial stages of protection that, inmany cases, aesthetic appreciation came to be considered equivalent to the exis-tence of conservation-worthy values, so that places considered aestheticallyunattractive were understood as valueless areas not worthy of protection(Múgica and De Lucio 1996). In some cases, even, the social pressure of aes-thetics has become so strong as to be included in self-justifying destructivebehavior. As Araújo (1996: 230) says, “Nature presents us with spectacles thatwe often deny ourselves when we cut out that which is natural, not without firstdevaluing the loss by minimizing the aesthetic value of what we see.”

parks, with two areas legally declaredby 1918. The specific law of 1916defines national parks as “those excep-tionally picturesque places or sites.”Similar words can be found in promi-nent positions in all the laws, orders,and decrees passed between 1920 and1960. On the other hand, the 1975law, the last one signed by GeneralFrancisco Franco, mentions the beau-ty of the landscapes in the last place ofthe list of reasons for declaring pro-tected areas. Current legislation, thelaw of 1989, partially modified in1997, endorses the establishment of anational park for each one of the coun-try’s most representative ecosystemsand defines national parks as “naturalareas of high ecological and culturalvalue” that are designated as suchbecause of “the beauty of their land-scapes” and “the representativeness oftheir ecosystems.” Seemingly, aesthet-ics returns to the position of greatestimportance, but the context is now dif-ferent. Ecological representativeness issystematically considered in selectingand planning new areas.

At a global level, during the 1970sand 1980s, a certain conceptual confu-sion arises, even in countries whereprotected areas were first created, suchas the United States. This is due to thecoincidence of two factors: the greatgeographical expansion and increas-ing number of protected areas (anddiverse processes of local adaptation)and the “ecologization” of scientificthought. The de-emphasis of aesthet-ics seems to derive from its supposedrole in stimulating over-visitation tothe areas. This is in contrast to themuch stricter preservation theoretical-ly guaranteed by the ecologicalapproach. As Ackerman (1989: 40)noted with reference to America, “Thenational park idea has moved away

from its utilitarian, recreational begin-nings, but its philosophical founda-tions remain shaky. If ... we seem tostray from the goals of naturalness andconservation of biological wholeness,it is because we are still torn by the twopowerful and opposing drives of thePark Service mandate—to use and yetpreserve.”

The DebateInternationally, the supposedly

more scientific criterion of representa-tiveness seems to have prevailed.Protected areas are now selected andmanaged from an ecological point ofview that assigns greatest value to pro-tecting the biological diversity ofregions or countries. No doubt thischange could be interpreted from thestandpoint of aesthetics, as a sort of“maturity” in which perception ismodulated by a larger number of otherfactors and abstractions, including theawareness of belonging to a state. Inany event, it is a fact that, thanks to theappreciation born from deeper knowl-edge, previously unappreciated land-scapes, such as dunes, steppes, orscrubs, have become objects of protec-tion under categories that considerboth their value in ecosystem protec-tion and their emotional connectionwith the observer. As Crespo (1992)verified, landscape perception param-eters can be successfully used to con-trast (and confirm) ecosystem evalua-tions based on ecological parameters.

Nevertheless, little by little, withoutexplicitly giving up aesthetic consider-ations, the conservation objectives ofprotected area systems have focusedprimarily on representation of ecolog-ical diversity. Categories of protectedareas have multiplied and diversifiedaround the world, but, save for limit-ed, older exceptions, they all tend to


focus on biological diversity and therelations between the components ofsuch diversity. The human species isconsidered, in many cases, an integralpart of the system, but always in anoperational sense, and not as an exter-nal observer, capable of perceiving andof making decisions based on suchperception.

In spite of the powerful influencethat pure attraction continues to exert,there is great reluctance today to pub-licly defend the protection of an areaon aesthetic grounds. As Kimber(1999: 68) puts it:

[T]hese expressions of value, emo-tion and delight do crop up occa-sionally in even the most soberand hard-headed gatherings, butthey register as little more thanroad bumps. They lurk on theperiphery of the discussion. Thecommunal response is essentially,“Well, yes, that’s all very nice butnow let’s get back to business.”And business is the reductionisttask of asking science to tell ushow little land we need to setaside to preserve existing nativespecies and communities.

This phenomenon has become evi-dent enough for the WorldCommission for Protected Areas([WCPA] 2001) to take it up and statein its Web site: “At the internationallevel there has been a reluctance tomake explicit, and promote the man-agement of protected areas for, non-material values. This is due, perhaps,to growing globalization of the west-ern way of looking at the world thatattaches singular importance to thescientific and technical, at the expenseof the human, cultural, and spiritual.”

Conscious efforts continue, never-theless, to reverse this trend and vindi-

cate the real importance of the far-reaching values of landscape. Again,Kimber (1999: 68) shares this point ofview in an illustrative way when hesays, “[M]y sense is that what mattersfar more than any wonder drug sci-ence may yet discover in the jungles ofBorneo are those aesthetic and spiritu-al values we choose to exclude frompublic debate.” On the other hand,expert voices endure in the realms ofartistic analysis that continue to advo-cate an aesthetic approach to naturalareas. Such is the case of Alonso(1988: 8) when she says:

We recognize the limits of percep-tion, but the fact that it has limitsdoes not mean that it is not thebest tool we have available. Weare well qualified to correctly per-ceive structural and formal rela-tions, and even to know intuitivelyand to find the underlying order inthe seeming chaos of naturalforms. Consequently, I have con-sidered cultivating perception, andbasing the study of charactersupon it, an adequate approach,and a correct starting point, totake on the study of natural areas.

What, then, is happening? Whyhave aesthetic values moved from pri-mary to marginal importance, andthen back toward primary importanceonce again? What does it mean todayto speak of aesthetic values, to usethem in connection with protectedareas to which society entrusts moreand more complex functions, increas-ingly linked to bioregional planning?In what follows, we intend toapproach these questions, startingfrom a geohistoric review of the con-cept of landscape aesthetics and itsconnections to protected area theory.


The BeginningsIt appears reasonable to suppose

that the earliest form of conscious per-ception of a given portion of territory(thus for the first time turned into“landscape”) was probably built onthe abstraction born from sharedknowledge of different environmentswith their differing climatic, geomor-phological, and ecological elements.Such knowledge would have beenvery important to the everyday sur-vival of a still-nomadic human groupin an unpredictable environment.Bernáldez (1981: vii) expresses it thisway:

Man and his predecessors havebeen immersed for thousands ofyears in the flow of informationwhich landscape is. We should notwonder at the presence of numer-ous adaptive responses. Amongthem, the emotional, sentimentalaspects of landscape should berecognized. Are we aware of theimportance of the reactions wecall “aesthetic,” of their adaptivebackground, of the role theyplayed in survival?

Arsuaga (1999) is probably alsoright when he links the origin of suchemotional responses to the enormousanalytical capacity of the human brainand to the subsequent “humaniza-tion” of elements of the environmentand of the relations between them,which was already present in prehis-toric times. The permanent attentionto the movements, facial expressions,and other signals coming from theother members of human societyprobably resulted in abstractions thatled to the assignment of “personali-ties,” of souls, to elements of nature.Geomorphic and topographical char-acteristics and atmospheric dynamics

were interpreted to have human quali-ties. High cliffs and storm clouds start-ed sending out the same menacingmessage as a person standing upstraight, arms in the air, while the calmmouths of rivers spoke of loving wel-come and pleasure. This peculiar wayof treating nonhuman entities ashuman, and involving them in stories,served as a useful mechanism tounderstand natural phenomena butalso, and above all, as a vehicle to cre-ate active sets, perceived systems,geographies, and landscapes. Moun-tains and other formations (frequently,and not by chance, protected) thatbear names of human characters arestill plentiful today.

Certain kinds and combinations ofthese mental constructs were especial-ly effective in giving impressions ofsafety, abundance, or well-being. Theybegan to be transmitted and embel-lished through generations, and theyturned into cultural artifacts, evocativemyths. And once primal needs weresatisfied, the impulse continued toprotect those areas that exhibitedthese qualities symbolic of welfare. Atthe same time, of course, other combi-nations that transmitted impressionsof sterility, helplessness, or aggressionwere consolidated as inhospitablelandscapes from which it was wise tostay away. This kind of process musthave happened in similar ways in dif-ferent bioclimatic zones of the world,giving birth to the different aestheticconceptions that would much laterconfront each other. Consequently,these twin perceptional processes,generated in different territories byhuman communities adapted to them,would have resulted in equivalent butdivergent systems of values. Thesevalue systems were then reflected inthe criteria used for the identification


and prioritization of protected areas.The inclination to protect certain

kinds of areas would thus be a result ofthe building of the concept of land-scape itself. Throughout modern andcontemporary history, this inclinationhas resulted in the protection of lesssubtle landscapes that are readilyappreciated, such as mountain areaswith plentiful vegetation and differentvarieties of still and running water(Figure 1), that respond to what hasbeen called the “Alpine Model”(Múgica and De Lucio 1996). Thisline of thought has been called the“eco-ethological theory of landscapeaesthetics” by Bernáldez (1981: 246),with the statement that “aesthetic pref-erences for (or rejection of ) certainlandscapes appear to be instinctivereactions to the symbolic character ofcertain elements of the scene.”

Obviously, the idea itself of symbol-

ic character can vary according to eachindividual or collective “user” of thelandscape and hence evolve over timewith divergent results. Thus, today’sresearch on the aesthetic preferencesof visitors to protected areas confirmsthat the degree of direct experienceand intellectual knowledge of an areaclearly influences the appreciation ofits aesthetic values. De Lucio andMúgica (1994: 156) arrived at theempirical conclusion that “visitors tothe national parks also differ in theirlandscape preferences depending ontheir attitudes and environmentalbehaviour. The more casual and gen-eralist visitors more often choose theprototype landscape, rejecting thoseof the parks that have other character-istics. Certain more specialised groupstend to choose more often the land-scape of the park that they are in, suchas wild challenging landscapes. The


Figure 1. The “Alpine Model”: easily decipherable landscapes have been a frequent object ofprotection in modern history. Big South Fork National River and Recreation Area,Tennessee. National Park Service photo.

subjects with more experience of thepark also choose landscapes with alower degree of legibility.”

The Early and Middle AgesThe psychological process under-

lying the origin of aesthetics seems tobe initially connected to the phenome-non of religious experience. The firstunmistakably funerary behaviors dis-covered by current archaeology(Arsuaga 1999) are connected to thecareful choosing of a place. Later on,the great civilizations of antiquity(e.g., the Mayas in Tikal; the Aztecs inTenochtitlán; the Quechuas, or Incas,in Machu Picchu; or the Egyptians inthe Valley of the Kings) repeatedlyrevealed the linkage between theestablishment of important religiouscenters and the perception and appre-ciation of “promising” landscapes. Inthe origin itself of Western civilization,the Acropolis of Athens embodies theparadigm of synergy between topo-graphic site and human action toestablish a sense of place, of identifica-tion, over time creating the need forpreservation and protection. Bloomerand Moore (1979: 120) recognize it intheir analysis, when they state,“Among all places in the world, this iswith no doubt the one that makes anywestern man tremble the most.... Letus begin saying that the site itself ismagnificent to start with.... The build-ings of the Acropolis continue to serveas models of exquisite care.”

This synergy of place, siting, andarchitecture was passed down to theMiddle Ages in Europe, but greaterimportance was progressively ac-quired by the architectural compo-nent, which, from a Christian point ofview, is justified because the humanbeing is seen as God’s obedient agent.Sacred buildings were also uncon-

sciously, but carefully, separated fromtheir theoretically optimum locationsto avoid trampling on (and competingwith) places that were frequentlysacred (i.e., geomorphologically,hence aesthetically powerful) inancient pagan traditions. Templeswould then serve as specific instru-ments of their day. Placed within atime frame that surpassed them, theywould act as dissuasive peripheralattractors, comparable in this sense topresent-day protected area visitor cen-ters. In some coastal regions of west-ern Europe, for example, a sort of pro-portion can be detected between thephysical and artistic magnitude of thechurches, and the ancestral “impor-tance” of the cape landforms as sacredsites, which inspired people with awebased on the force of sea and windagainst the rocks. The paradigmaticexample is the cathedral of SaintJames, in Compostela, Spain, the west-ernmost goal for millions of Europeanpilgrims throughout the centuries inspite of its not being located exactly onthe Cape of Fisterra (literally, “the endof the world”), but somewhat with-drawn, at a distance from it, which isalso a sign of its more than geographi-cal value. In any case, what greaterprotection for a site can be found thanthat emanating from the concentratedpresence of God in it?

Modern TimesNevertheless, the clearest reference

to the “ higher powers” is paradoxical-ly furnished at the turning point whenmedieval theocracy is left behind, andthe Modern Age is consolidated.Again, Bernáldez (1981: 181) illus-trates this accurately when he statesthat “the awe, the mixture of terrorand exultation, that was previouslyreserved for God, was transferred dur-


ing the seventeenth century to a widercosmos ... and to its great objects:mountains, oceans, deserts. The aes-thetics of Infinity was founded by trav-elers who felt amazed, but at the sametime captivated, by infinite space.”

The age of the great Europeanexplorations and colonization began.The expeditions took place largelybecause of their value in geopoliticalterms where the acquisition of largevirgin territories served as testimoniesto the power of the State. Neverthe-less, the scientific component (andthrough it the aesthetic questions thatfiltered into the intellectual discourse)played a remarkable role during thisperiod of expansion. This happened,for instance, through the influence offigures as outstanding as Alexandervon Humboldt, author and spreaderof the concept of the “scenes ofNature.” In a farewell letter writtenbefore leaving for his famous journeyand quoted, among others, by Botting(1995: 57), Humboldt confesses hisgreat philosophical (and aesthetical)goal: “I will collect plants and fossils,and will carry out astronomical obser-vations. But this is not the main objec-tive of my expedition. I will try to dis-cover how the forces of Nature interactamong each other, and how the geo-graphic environment influences ani-mal and plant life. In other words, Ishall search for the unity of Nature.”

The end result of this fundamental-ly transformative expansion was thegenerally violent meeting of civiliza-tions, of cultures, and of aesthetics.The tug-of-war began that later affect-ed something as crucial as the selec-tion of the lands to be preserved (or tobe kept protected as they were by thefirst residents); in other words, thefight to get symbols of one’s own tra-dition included in the small final set

considered worthy of preservation asshared heritage. Even though the ini-tial encounters between civilizationstook place in a wide range of settings,over time colonization focused basi-cally on places that confirm the validi-ty of the eco-ethological theory oflandscape aesthetics—that is, familiarenvironments. An accurate descrip-tion of the process is offered byCrosby (1988: 3–7): “European emi-grants and their descendants are allover the place.... They also composethe great majority in the populationsof what I shall call the Neo-Europes....But what was the nature of the Neo-European pull? The attractions weremany, of course.... But underlyingthem all ... were factors perhaps bestdescribed as biogeographical.”

The so-called Neo-Europes aregeographically scattered but occupysimilar latitudes. They therefore enjoysimilar, basically temperate, climatesand offer opportunities for the exis-tence of vicarious species and ecosys-tems, and hence the development oftwin “families” of observed land-scapes. Obvious cases appear, forexample, through comparison ofNorway, Germany, or Spain with thecorresponding regions of Chile orNew Zealand. Consequently, destina-tions chosen for reasons of landscapesimilarity regenerate the same kind ofemotional links to the sites, the samekind of what has been called “sense ofplace,” and hence parallel paths in nat-ural area preservation concepts.European expansion strongly modi-fied and unified people’s territorialperception, and preservation priori-ties, all over the world. This line ofprotection lasted as long as the nine-teenth-century concepts of state andinternational relations held. Theprocess of general review of Western


precepts initiated after World War II,and which deepened from the 1960son, has also influenced the selectionand management of protected areas. Ashift took place, which was in tunewith what the new society demandedfrom protected areas, and the need toassert new values. Actually, it hasalways been that way, both in the peri-ods during which aesthetic reasonswere embedded in other argumentsand in those when they have prevailedexplicitly. This is clearly perceived bySmith (2000: 233) in his historicalreview of developments in the UnitedStates, when he observes that

parks are also one of the mosthonest reflections of our culture ...of what each generation ofAmericans has considered impor-tant. As sites are added to the sys-tem, as chaotic and unpredictableas the process may seem, they arereflections of the people’s will, anindication of what the majorityconsiders significant at themoment of the park’s establish-ment.... Our natural parks wereprimarily established for reasonsthat cannot be considered ecologi-cal. Everglades ... was our firstnational park that did not containthe tallest trees, the deepestcanyons, the highest waterfalls....This tendency has been character-ized by environmental historianAlfred Runte (1982) as ‘monumen-talism,’ putting extraordinary dis-plays of nature inside nationalpark boundaries. These bound-aries were almost never designedto follow ecological or topographi-cal features.... Significant compo-nents, then, that were absolutelycritical to the environments inwhich these features existed, wereleft outside the park.

Smith’s discourse reflects therational, scientific argument dominant

in the 1980s. It was then a widespreadopinion, even though, in many parts ofthe world, it still coexisted with astrong consideration of scenic beautyas a criterion for selecting protectedareas. At the international level, theimportance of both perspectives wasclarified and balanced by the estab-lishment of a standard set of defini-tions for comparable categories of pro-tected areas, and the later fine-tuningof these (IUCN 1994), in correspon-dence with management objectives.The functional focus of territories isthus stressed, all of which is consistentwith the modern aesthetic trend ofeclectic but harmonious integration.

Too little time has gone by for theeco-ethological principle to havechanged radically. What has changedare the elements of landscape and thereality they symbolize. Aesthetic pref-erences operate today as they did dur-ing the Stone Age, but now they relateto much more sophisticated objects.Thus, the messages of security orcomfort, those that can produce aes-thetic pleasure, include institutionalcomponents, as well as other complexabstractions. And this modern com-plexity is, of course, applicable to theselection, planning, and managementof protected areas as well. Modernsocieties demand reciprocal linkagesbetween their protected areas and theregions of which they are a part. Theselinkages facilitate effective and partici-pative management, local inputs intoregional planning, and transboundarycooperation. In short, societies todayseek protected areas that serve as animportant input toward sustainabilitythat ensures both services and values,not only in terms of a continuousstream of material benefits, but also interms of local pride, and identificationwith the region. Actually, integrative


sustainability, as an exponent of eco-logical and social health, is today theultimate object of protection.

In terms of regional planning, thisimplies the preservation of untouchedcore areas around which gradients ofhuman presence are established, inter-connected by corridors, the wholematrix being managed with conserva-tion-consistent criteria. Under thisconcept, protected area systems canbe designed to surpass mere ecologi-cal representativeness and take intoaccount other properties such asadaptability and connectivity. Awe,onomatopoeic awe, continues to influ-ence our relationship with the coreareas, but the sensation of functionalhealth around them, linked with theprotection of ecosystem processes, canalso be interpreted in new aestheticterms. The mutual protection agree-ment between people and landscape isbeing re-edited in a wider context. AsAraújo says (1996: 249), “If Naturehas nourished Culture, the time seemsto have come for reciprocity, forCulture to begin nourishing Nature:that is the essence of ecologicalthought.”

The signals sent out by the differ-ent cultural sources contribute to thenew definition of the symbols to bepreserved. This new definition corre-sponds to a landscape understoodwholly, as an integration of stage,scenery, and resource. It is not easy toreach an agreement on this definition,but new proposals are beginning to bearticulated, with ideas capable ofbringing together both scientific andemotional inputs. According toKimber (1999: 69), “The questionswe need to ask are not just how muchland do we need ... to preserve repre-sentative biotic communities, but howmuch do we need to leave alone ... if

we want to keep imagination alive, ifwe want to remain fully human.”Perhaps, then, one of the importantprinciples on which the agreement forthe new protection should be built isrecognition of the integral nature ofthe realities to be managed. Aesthetics,once identified with areas locked upunder a glass bell, pleads today toescape through the cracks. Here, too,there is design: Beauty results fromoptimizing use (including its absence,when fitting). The urgent need to gen-eralize this perspective is acutelypointed out by Berger (1999: 112):“Yellowstone is a British Museum ofnatural anomalies. The Tetons arecomposed as The Last Supper. TheGrand Canyon is water’s consummatesculpture. Our parks provide essen-tially a ceremonial experience,through which an informed publicpasses properly awed, and exiled fromits own feelings. Park custodians havethe same weakness as the rest of us:they love to name, to isolate, to pointout, and to enshrine.”

The proper common ground, then,for a balanced approach is that of anenriched sense of place, the conceptcapable of linking aesthetics, culture,peace, and survival through sustain-able protection of natural areas. In thewords of Lewis (1996: 21, 24, 27):“Identifying and protecting criticalnatural and cultural resources is thecrux ... to [sic] sustainability. Theseresources are not only the basis of ourlife-support system and our economicwell-being, but are also the basis forquality of life, sense of place, diversity,and options of choice.... Too often ...survival is not regarded as dependenton the land remaining intact, both eco-logically and aesthetically.”

Finally, none of this can beachieved without social understand-


ing and participation. It is people whohave defined the role of aesthetics inlandscape protection since the begin-ning, and this will be even more thecase in the future. As Rollins (1993:1,3) puts it:

Residents of a community havethoughts and ideas about whatmakes their surroundings andcommunity visually important andattractive.... Citizens should beasked to prioritize each visualresource they identify. This willhelp in identifying sites; [and in]establish[ing] a ranking or prioritylist ... of special or distinctiveviews—[namely,] those that char-

acteristically contribute to the visu-al quality of the community andarea and provide a sense of placeand image.

Human beings will continue toevolve together with the landscapethey inhabit, use, modify, and admire.We will continue to respond to thesymbolic power of scenic elements,whatever those happen to be at anygiven time. Protecting areas today, andtomorrow, will mean ensuring the con-tinuity of what is essential, materiallyand emotionally, in that relationship. Itwill always be a story of preserving thesense of place.


ReferencesAckerman, J.G. 1989. An idea unfolds. In Nature’s Wonderlands. National Parks of the World,

ed. R. M. Poole. Washington, D.C.: National Geographic Society, 19–41.Alonso, R. 1988. Doñana Vegetación y Paisaje. Seville: AMA-Junta de Andalucía and DGMA-

MOPU.Araújo, J. 1996. XXI: Siglo de la Ecología. Madrid: Espasa Calpe.Arsuaga, J. L. 1999. El Collar de Neandertal: En Busca de los Primeros Pensadores. Madrid:

Temas de Hoy.Berger, B. 1999. The stone gallery. In Unmanaged Landscapes, ed. B. Willers. Covelo, Calif.:

Island Press, 112–113.Bernáldez, F. G. 1981. Ecología y Paisaje. Barcelona: Blume.Bloomer, K. C., and C. W. Moore. 1983 [1977]. Cuerpo, Memoria y Arquitectura: Introducción

al Diseño Arquitectónico. Madrid: Blume. Translated as Body, Memory, and Architecture,trans. M. T. Muñoz Jiménez. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press.

Botting, D. 1995 [1973]. Humboldt y El Cosmos: Vida, Obra y Viajes de un Hombre Universal(1769–1859). Barcelona: del Serbal. Translated as Humboldt and the Cosmos, trans. M.Crespo. London: Rainbird.

Crespo, E. 1992. Aportaciones al Uso Integrado de Parámetros Etológicos y Paisajísticos en laDeterminación de la Calidad de los Ecosistemas Terrestres: Aplicación a la Gestión delSistema de Dunas Móviles del Parque Nacional de Doñana. Ph.D. diss. ETSIM—Universidad Politécnica de Madrid.

Crosby, A. W. 1988 [1986]. Ecological Imperialism: The Biological Expansion of Europe,900–1900. 4th ed. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

De Lucio, J. V., and M. Múgica. 1994. Landscape preferences and behaviour of visitors toSpanish national parks. Landscape and Urban Planning 29, 145–160.

IUCN. 1994. Guidelines For Protected Area Management Categories. Gland, Switzerland: IUCN.Kemmis, D. 2001. This Sovereign Land. [Quoting Wallace Stegner.] Covelo, Calif.: Island Press.Kimber, R. 1999. What do we really want from the woods? In Unmanaged Landscapes, ed. B.

Willers. Covelo, Calif.: Island Press, 67–69.Leopold, A. 1949. A Sand County Almanac. New York: Oxford University Press.Lewis, P. H., Jr. 1996. Tomorrow by Design: A Regional Design Process for Sustainability. New

York: John Wiley & Sons.Múgica, M., and J.V. De Lucio. 1996. The role of on-site experience on landscape preferences:

a case study at Doñana National Park (Spain). Journal of Environmental Management 47,229–239.

Muir, J. 1985 [1980]. Wilderness Essays. 4th ed. Salt Lake City, Utah: Peregrine Smith.


Rollins, J. H. 1993. Preservation of Scenic Areas and Viewsheds. OSP Technical Bulletin no. 10.Concord: New Hampshire Office of State Planning. On-line at www.state.nh.us/osp/plan-ning/guide/docs.

Runte, A. 1982. National Parks: The American Experience. 2nd ed. Lincoln: University ofNebraska Press.

Smith, R. B. 2000. Saving all the parts. In National Parks and Rural Development, ed. G. E.Machlis and D. R. Field. Covelo, Calif.: Island Press, 231–241.

WCPA [IUCN World Commission on Protected Areas]. 2001. Non-material Values of ProtectedAreas. On-line at wcpa.iucn.org/networks/values.

Eduardo Crespo de Nogueira, Navamonjas 11—Las Jaras, 28260 Galapagar(Madrid), Spain; [email protected]

Consuelo Martínez Flores, Navamonjas 11—Las Jaras, 28260 Galapagar(Madrid), Spain

1

There is no escaping religion, how-ever, which enters into such conflictswhenever people perceive places to besacred or believe that sacred values areat stake in place-based behavior. Thisis, arguably, most of the time. As reli-gion scholar David Chidester asserts,what people hold to be sacred has todo with experiences of “ultimatemeaning and transcendent power”(Chidester 1987: 4). We would add tothis definition of sacredness experi-ences of transformative power, tounderscore that an encounter withsomething holy is not always aboutsomething otherworldly and toremind that transformational religiousexperiences often take place in naturalplaces such as mountains, forests,deserts, and wildernesses. This hascertainly been true for America’s abo-riginal inhabitants and many of their

contemporary progeny. But it is alsotrue for many European Americans,for whom perceptions of the sublimein nature, often influenced by Jewishand Christian sources and diversestreams of European and AmericanRomanticism, are also deeply rooted.

Today, nature-based spiritualitiesseem as strong as ever in America.Although great diversity exists, naturereligion practitioners speak in kindredways of belonging to, and feeling con-nected within, a sacred, natural world(Taylor 2001a, 2001b). We shouldnot, therefore, be surprised by calls toprotect the places where people findspiritual meaning, nor should we besurprised by hostility or indifferenceto such calls by those who do notshare such spiritual perceptions.

Some of the difficulties that differ-ing spiritual perceptions present to


Bron TaylorJoel Geffen

Battling Religions in Parks and ForestReserves: Facing Religion in Conflicts

over Protected Places

Public servants responsible for protected areas face many pressures.Caught in battles between representatives of competing and oftenincompatible interests, land managers understandably strive for clearguidelines to simplify decision-making. So do jurists dragged in after-

ward. In the United States, the Forest Service’s “multiple use” mandates to facil-itate commodity extraction and recreation while maintaining ecosystem integri-ty, as well as the National Park Service’s mission to preserve native ecosystemsfor future generations, provide benchmarks for decision-making. Calls forcost–benefit analysis or for the “best available science” to shape decisions alsoreflect a desire to find solid ground for land-use or legal decisions. The last thingthose responsible for protected areas may want is to find themselves wedgedbetween competing and incompatible religious claims over what constitutesproper behavior there. Their jobs are already difficult enough, they might justi-fiably feel, and few of them are equipped to deal with the religious dimensions ofthe conflicts over which they must preside.

those attempting to resolve land dis-putes will be illustrated by examiningbattles over the construction of tele-scopes on a mountain in Arizona, log-ging in Minnesota, and rock-climbingin Wyoming. These cases providecommon ground for summarizing theways governmental officials respond toland conflicts and their religiousdimensions and for suggesting whichapproaches are most likely to protectboth ecological and cultural diversity.

The Battle for Mount GrahamMount Graham, Dzil nchaa si an to

the region’s Apache Indians, is locatedin the Coronado National Forest ofsoutheastern Arizona. Many Apacheconsider it sacred: as a place to pro-cure medicinal plants, a burialgrounds for their medicine people, apilgrimage and ceremonial site, andthe home of spiritual beings known asGaahn, Lightning People or CrownDancers, to whom prayers are offeredfor life-giving water (Basso 1992).

A fierce conflict erupted overMount Graham in the mid-1980s,when members of the San CarlosApache initiated a campaign to haltthe construction of the MountGraham International Observatory.An international group of researchersled by University of Arizona astron-omers envisioned a complex of fifteenadvanced-technology telescopes,including one sponsored by theVatican Observatory. Apache medi-cine man Franklin Stanley character-ized the telescopes as a desecrationthat would block his people’s prayersfrom traveling to the heavens viaMount Graham. He considered theproject to be a form of cultural geno-cide: “The mountain is holy,” heasserted. “If you take Mt. Grahamfrom us, you will take our culture....

[Desecrating] Mt. Graham ... is likecutting off an arm or a leg of theApache people” (in Taylor 1995:146).

Environmental activists helpedform the Apache Survival Coalition,subsequently filing lawsuits andmounting a public relations offensive.Many of these environmentalists, andthe coalition’s most radical partici-pants, were members of the radicalenvironmental Earth First! movement,which asserts that all life forms have anintrinsic value, a right to exist, evenwhen they are not obviously useful tohumans. These activists sharedFranklin’s belief that the mountainwas sacred, although they seemed tounderstand this differently. Relying ona relatively new theory, island biogeog-raphy, which endeavors to explainwhy unique flora and fauna tends toevolve on islands, they contended thatMount Graham’s isolation by the sur-rounding desert made it much like anisland, and they complained that thetelescopes might well destroy thisunique and fragile “sacred islandecosystem” (Taylor 1995: 119).

Consequently, the environmentalradicals, animated by such spiritualperceptions, tried to thwart the con-struction through “direct action,” ini-tiating illegal road blockades on themountain, and through rowdy inva-sions of university offices. Neverapprehended were activist saboteurswho stole or destroyed equipmentintended for the scopes. At some ofthe protests, Indians from the region(and a number of American IndianMovement activists known in theUnited States for their militant defenseof Native American interests since the1960s) joined the direct action resist-ance.

It was difficult to build coalitions of


resistance, however. Even though theyshared a conviction that MountGraham was sacred, there were dis-agreements over what this meant, andcorresponding disputes arose regard-ing what constituted appropriate, ven-erating behavior. Disputes eruptedbetween American Indian Movementmembers and some radical environ-mentalists—for example, during strat-egy sessions on Mount Graham.These activists, despite their desire tomutually defend Mount Graham,could not all agree about whether itwas permissible to consume alcohol orengage in sweat lodge ceremonies bor-rowed from Native American cultures(Taylor 1997).

Despite internal disagreements, thecoalition’s resistance put the universi-ty and the Vatican Observatory on thedefensive. The university respondedby highlighting the divisions withinthe Apache communities, arguing thatnot all of them considered the moun-tain sacred and that some of those whodid believed that the telescopes couldbe constructed in a way that would becompatible with their religion. Theuniversity employed anthropologistsand public relations firms to help itmake its case.

The Vatican Observatory’s astron-omers faced a special conundrum.They would either have to withdrawfrom the project or reject claims theywere promoting cultural genocide.The observatory’s response was ledby two Jesuits, George V. Coyne, thedirector, and Charles W. Polzer, cura-tor of ethnohistory at the ArizonaState Museum in Tucson, Arizona.Both stated that they respected NativeAmerican religion and acknowledgedthat some Apache consider the moun-tain to be sacred. But they arguedthere was no “credible evidence” from

“authentic Apache” proving the tele-scopes would violate Apache religiousfreedom. And Coyne and Polzer regu-larly spoke in ways revealing theworldview differences underlying thedispute. They asserted, for example,that because no shrines had beenfound on the mountain, that it couldnot have been an important ceremoni-al site, and they concluded as a resultthat Apache religious practice mustnot be dependent on access to themountain or precluded by telescopesupon it.

Moreover, both Coyne and Polzerexpressed antipathy to the religiousperceptions animating their oppo-nents. Coyne’s comments were espe-cially noteworthy. Although he oncestated, “We wish ... to preserve thesacred character of Mt. Graham byassuring that ... the Observatory willnot contribute to the degradation ofthe mountain,” he declared on anotheroccasion that neither the Earth nornon-human life can be sacred because,unlike human beings, neither havesouls or are eternal. But his mostardent opponents viewed all life asintrinsically valuable and MountGraham as sacred. Coyne knew thisand urged his religious peers to recog-nize that his opponents were promot-ing an environmentalism and paganreligion that is pernicious and “mustbe suppressed with all the force thatwe can muster.” For Coyne, the sacredis beyond this world and the Vatican’stelescope is part of an otherworldlyreligious mission to help humans to“know where ... civilization camefrom” and to find God, or at least todeepen human understanding ofGod’s creation and character. ForCoyne, the proposed observatorieswere also justifiable because the evan-gelical mission of the Church could be


enhanced through the sub-millimeterradio frequency technology beingbuilt on Mount Graham. It mightenable earthly Christians to communi-cate and evangelize extraterrestrials(Taylor 1995: 126).

This brief case study (for details,see Taylor 1995) reveals that differ-ences regarding where the sacred islocated—above the world somewhere,or specifically here or there on Earth—can lead to irreconcilable disagree-ments over what constitutes one’s reli-gious obligations here (or there) andnow. For the present purpose, weshould note that the Forest Servicestrongly supported the telescope proj-ect, and in most ways so did the courtsthat took up the environmental andreligious liberty-based lawsuits oppos-ing it, sometimes aided by timelyexemptions to existing environmentallaws provided by the U.S. Congress.By 2002, the first three of the original-ly envisioned 15 telescopes were com-pleted (Figures 1 and 2), but the resist-ance had succeeded in paring signifi-

cantly the number of planned tele-scopes.

Establishing Green ReligionIn October 1999, an association of

loggers filed a civil lawsuit, AssociatedContract Loggers v. United StatesForest Service. Ironically, the lawsuitwas filed not just against the ForestService but also against two environ-mental groups who had regularly filedlawsuits against the Forest Service intheir efforts to prevent logging. Theplaintiffs alleged that the environmen-talists were inspired by “deep ecologyreligion” that, like Native Americanreligions and various forms ofPaganism, considers nature sacredand environmental destruction a dese-crating act. It moreover contendedthat these environmentalists, with thecomplicity of the Forest Service, hadviolated the First Amendment of theUnited States Constitution and itsestablishment clause, which enjoinsthe government from “establishing”(privileging and supporting) one reli-


Figure 1. An aerial view of the telescope complex on Mount Graham, July 1999. Photo by RickTeachout courtesy of Large Binocular Telescope Project.

gion over another. The logger plain-tiffs claimed that the Forest Serviceand the defendant environmentalistshad privileged deep ecology religionthrough management decisions reduc-ing logging, while insisting that theirown concern was to overturn govern-ment-supported religion, not to sup-press any particular religion.

The environmentalist defendantsand their supporters (including theenvironmental activist Julia ButterflyHill and leaders of various deep ecolo-gy institutes) responded that deepecology was not a religion but a phi-losophy or, alternately, that they werenot motivated by deep ecology reli-gion. The defendants also argued thateven if they were so motivated, theFirst Amendment guarantees the rightof citizens to petition the government.The defendant environmentalists also

claimed that their own lawsuits againstthe Forest Service were based on sci-ence and law and that their legal victo-ries demonstrate a valid, secular basisfor their litigation. They concludedthat, given their adversarial relation-ship with the Forest Service, it wasabsurd to contend they were incahoots with it to establish deep ecol-ogy religion. The Forest Serviceagreed and denied being influencedby any religious interest group.

A U.S. District Court judge dis-missed the lawsuit in February 2000,holding that the environmentalistdefendants had not taken state action,a prerequisite to finding a constitu-tional violation. He also held thatthere was no compelling evidence thatthe Forest Service had been influencedby the environmental activists whowere, in any case, entitled to try to


Figure 2. An aerial view of the LBT (Large Binocular Telescope) enclosure erected on MountGraham during December 1999. As of April 2004, construction was continuing on the tel-escope itself. Photo by Stephen Criswell courtesy of Large Binocular Telescope Project.

influence government forest practices,whatever their religious motivations.

Given the case law and facts pre-sented, this was an appropriate ruling.The concerns expressed by the loggerlawsuit, however, were not implausi-ble, for the religiosity of their adver-saries is obvious to any who knowthem, read their literature, or are awareof scholarly studies about their reli-gious dimensions (see, e.g., Taylor1994, 1995, 2001a, 2001b). Despitedefensive disclaimers by some move-ment participants, deep ecology andkindred movements certainly qualifyas religion (Taylor 1994, 1996, 1999,2000, 2001a, 2001b). The loggerscould have made a stronger argumentthan they did, however, that the ForestService, or at least some of its employ-ees, are motivated by deep ecology orkindred nature spiritualities.

Indeed, many Forest Service (andPark Service) luminaries have beenmotivated by nature-based religion.John Muir, whose preservationistethics live on as an important part ofthe Park Service’s mission, was moti-vated by both pantheistic and ani-mistic perceptions of the holy innature (Fox 1981; Cohen 1984). BobMarshall, a pantheist and mountaineerwho served in several important interi-or department posts, was the drivingforce behind the establishment of theForest Service’s first wildernessreserves (Fox 1981: 208; see alsoGraber 1976). Aldo Leopold, whowith Marshall helped create theWilderness Society, also championedwilderness during his own ForestService career. In his writings,Leopold eloquently fused science withnature spirituality, while expressingprivately his pantheistic spirituality(Fox 1981: 367; Meine 1988:506–507; Callicott 1994: 42–43; on

Muir, Marshall, and Leopold, see alsoTaylor 1995).

Leopold’s nature spirituality isespecially important, for many consid-er him to be the twentieth century’smost influential ecologist. Certainly,his views are influential within theForest Service. And they permeate arecently published book produced byscholars affiliated with it, entitledNature and the Human Spirit (Driveret al. 1996). Jack Ward Thomas, chiefof the Forest Service during much ofthe 1990s, wrote its foreword. In it, hedescribes and endorses what DanDeudney calls “civic earth religion”(Deudney 1995, 1996) while trying todelicately avoid the constitutionalproblem of how to deal with religionin managing public lands:

The introductory chapter cautionsreaders against assigning a nar-row, sectarian, religious, or mysti-cal meaning to the words ‘spirit’and ‘spiritual’ because the wordsare used in a much broader sensethroughout the text. Much care istaken not to imply actions or ideasthat would violate the doctrine ofthe separation of church andstate.... [Jennifer] Friesen [one ofthe authors in the book] proposesthat purposeful management ofthe public lands, in part to renewthe human spirit as the concept isdeveloped in the text, has nothingto do with the causes of the FirstAmendment to the Constitution....Friesen’s position is that nature-based spiritual beliefs are genericto all users, whether holders ornonholders of sectarian religiousbeliefs. Friesen’s position is sup-ported strongly in the DescribingDiverse Perspectives section ofthe text, [which] clearly shows thatthe types of nature-based spirit-renewing benefits defined by theeditors ... are common across alltypes of users, whether a timbercutter, a hunter, a member of anenvironmental organization, ahiker, or a Native American.


Indeed, the purpose of this text isto articulate clearly these com-monly held values and to explorehow they can be integrated intothe practice of multiple-use sus-tainable ecosystems manage-ment. This is in line with the Policyof the ... Forest Service that ‘...ecosystem management mustinclude consideration of the physi-cal, emotional, mental, spiritual,social, and economic well-being ofpeople and communities’.... Thistext is timely because it is clearthat a growing number of peoplerecognize and deliberately seekthe spiritual benefits the publiclands can provide ... to renew theirspirit away from the city, and tolearn about natural processes.This text should help elected offi-cials and administrators and man-agers of natural areas betterunderstand the complex intangi-ble benefits those areas provideand how they enrich the lives of allAmericans (Thomas 1996:xxiii–xxiv; emphasis added).

Such sentiments may not be equiv-alent to deep ecology spirituality, butneither are they religiously neutral.They may not prove that the ForestService decision-making has beenshaped by “civic earth religion,” butthey do suggest that nature spiritualityis finding fertile ground in the agencyand that the loggers’ perceptions thatsuch religion may influence its deci-sion-making are not irrational. Again,it seems difficult to escape religionwhen exploring contested, protectedlands.

Devils Tower/Mato TipilaPerhaps best known from the

motion picture Close Encounters of theThird Kind, Devils Tower is a graniticcolumn rising roughly 1,300 feetabove the lowlands of the BelleFourche River floodplain in northeast-ern Wyoming (Figure 3). The tower

proper emerges from a rocky promi-nence located above the floodplain,extending 867 feet further skyward(Beaumont 1981: 27). Many NativeAmericans consider it sacred. Its strik-ing features led to its designation in1906 as America’s first national mon-ument. Today it is considered one ofthe world’s premier rock-climbingsites. Known to the region’s nativepeoples as Mato Tipila or Bear’sLodge (McLeod and Maynor 2001),the tower has long figured significant-ly in Plains Indian religion. Lakota,Eastern Shoshone, Kiowa, Kiowa-Apache, Comanche, Crow, Cheyenne,and Arapaho peoples have all livednear it, but between 1860 and 1910,the federal government made it diffi-cult for them to use the site (Hansonand Moore 1999: 53).

In 1893, two local ranchers madethe first recorded ascent, a pastimethat subsequently increased in popu-larity. Ten groups ascended to thesummit between 1938 and 1950.Ascents increased nearly five-fold overthe following twenty years, and by theend of the 1970s, about 500 partiesannually made the climb (Hanson andMoore 1999: 54).

In 1978, changing course after gen-erations during which hostility toAmerican Indian cultures and reli-gions was usually (but not always) offi-cial policy, the federal governmentpassed the American Indian ReligiousFreedom Act. It did not establish newrights or mandate access to or protec-tions of sacred sites, for the act was aprocedural one with no enforcementmechanisms (Linge 2000: 320). It did,however, require government agenciesto evaluate and reduce the negativeimpacts of their activities on AmericanIndian religion. At Mato Tipila, nativepeoples responded to the act by infus-



Figure 3. Devils Tower (Mato Tipila) in northeastern Wyoming. The national monumentincludes over 1,300 acres around the monolith. National Park Service photo.

ing a new energy into their rituals,leading to a flourishing and revival ofsun dances and vision quests, amongother cultural practices (Latimer2000: 116).

Meanwhile, by the early 1990s,5,000 people were climbing thereeach year (Hanson and Moore 1999:54), precipitating increased religion-related tensions between Indians andclimbers. Many Indians took offense atthe behavior of climbers who leftclimbing hardware in the rock, dis-turbed ceremonies by yelling, or evenremoved Indian prayer bundles(Koehl and Van Boven 1996). Suchbehavior was seen as a threat to theefficacy of the ceremonies (McLeodand Maynor 2001).

Some climbers were unsympatheticto such complaints. “As far as I’m con-cerned,” one contended, “prayer bun-dles are ... trash, and I’m very offend-ed to have them hanging around themonument.... [T]he Indians don’tclimb that rock which I own as anAmerican citizen” (Dustin andSchneider 2001: 82). “I don’t carehow many taxes anybody pays,” saidan Arapaho Indian in a typicalresponse, noting that climbing upon aChristian church would never be tol-erated, asserting neither should it behere, for “this place was dedicatedwhen the ancient people found it ...and since then it’s been a sacredplace” (Hanson and Moore 1999:57–58).

Hoping to prevent the dispute fromboiling over into violence, theNational Park Service began drafting aclimbing management plan in 1992 tocohere with the newly amendedNational Historic Preservation Act,which for the first time required feder-al agencies to “accommodate access toand ceremonial use of Indian sacred

sites ... and [to] avoid adversely affect-ing the physical integrity of suchsacred sites” (Latimer 2000: 117).The Park Service invited NativeAmericans, climbers, environmental-ists, and local citizens to work togeth-er with Park Service representatives. Afinal climbing management plan wasproduced in 1995. Its key provisionwas a voluntary ban on climbing dur-ing June, the most important monthon the Indian ceremonial calendar. Ifthe voluntary approach failed, the planindicated, a mandatory ban would beconsidered (Dussias 1999: para.26–29).

About 85% of the climbers com-plied willingly. But in a lawsuit knownas Bear Lodge Multiple Use Associationv. Babbitt, a user’s group representingseveral climbers, including commer-cial climbing guide Andy Petefish,sued the government, arguing that anyban violated the U.S. Constitution’sestablishment clause (Hamilton 1996;see Bear Lodge v. Babbitt 1996).Petefish opposed special considera-tion for Native American religion,arguing that the tower was a sacredplace for him, too, for “rock climbingis my spiritual activity” (Coates 1996).Other climbers agreed. Responding tocriticism that he was desecratingsomebody’s church, Frank Sandersstated, “I don’t mean to offend any-body, but if there’s a climbing ban ...then I’m locked out of my church. Ithink the church ought to be open”(McLeod and Maynor 2001).

In 1996, the U.S. District Courtjudge hearing the case ruled that amandatory ban would raise constitu-tional problems, but that the ParkService could avoid improper entan-glement with religion if the ban werecompletely voluntary (Bear Lodge v.Babbitt 1996). The plaintiffs appealed


this ruling even though the ban wasmade unambiguously voluntary in thesubsequently amended plan. Thejudge rejected this appeal in 1998.

The Park Service’s judiciallyendorsed compromise has not satis-fied some of the protagonists, who sayit violates their religious freedom.Charlotte Black Elk of the OglalaLakota, for example, still opposes anyclimbing as a desecration. Someclimbers insist that even a voluntaryban is disrespectful of their religiouspractice and unduly privileges Indianreligion. Climber Paul Piana asserts,for example, that he gets as much spir-itual satisfaction from climbing asIndians do from their rituals: “All ofthe things you are supposed to divinefrom religion, I get from climbing....There is this awe that is there, and thisrespect that is there, all of these mushy,groovy emotions you might come upwith to describe the better parts ofspirituality” (Hughes 1998). Clearly atMato Tipila/Devils Tower, there is noway for those vested with managementresponsibility to fully accommodateboth points of view.

ConclusionAs the world’s wilder places

become scarcer and thus more pre-cious, efforts to protect them are inten-sifying. But such efforts can precipi-tate conflict as stakeholders fight overplace-dependent resources, liveli-hoods, and lifeways. As an importantelement of human culture, religiousperceptions and practices oftenbecome intertwined within such dis-putes. Perhaps especially when reli-gious feelings are strong, such con-flicts can become violent (Taylor1998). One lesson from all of this isthat government officials, who increas-ingly must manage disputes over pro-

tected areas, ignore religion at theirperil. Those who do will be less likelyto succeed, whether in their environ-mental protection efforts or in amelio-rating conflicts over livelihoods or cul-tural values that such efforts may pre-cipitate.

Another lesson of the precedingcases (which, with more space, couldbe multiplied with many other exam-ples) is that principles or laws affirm-ing religious freedom do not magicallyliberate officials from taking sides inreligion-related disputes. There are noeasy answers and there is no way toavoid making controversial decisions.Officials must face religion forthright-ly and strive to reduce religion-relatedconflicts over protected places. Thepreceding cases signal three alterna-tive governmental responses that areavailable when incompatible religiousclaims are asserted over lands desig-nated or slated for protection.Thinking critically about theseresponses may provide guidance fordealing with such cases.

On Mount Graham, for example,despite the American Indian ReligiousFreedom Act, governmental, universi-ty, and church officials did little toanticipate or seriously consider thereligious objections to the envisionedtelescopes, responding defensivelyand aggressively when these objec-tions did emerge. From the ForestService to the Congress, governmentofficials acted not as neutral arbitersbetween the competing secular andreligious interests but rather as tele-scope champions. Indeed, the reli-gious sensibilities of the Indians andenvironmentalists seemed to remainincomprehensible, if not distasteful, tothe telescope’s key proponents. Thepossibility of accommodation was notseriously explored or undertaken.


The Contract Loggers’ lawsuit rais-es another possibility: Governmentdecision-makers could capitulate orconvert to a nature-revering spirituali-ty of one sort or another. Under such ascenario, they might well privilegeenvironmental preservation or place-dependent ceremony and reject, forexample, the preferences of those whoconsider it a sacred duty to extractGod-given resources to benefithumans who were created in God’simage and who alone have souls. U.S.resource agencies have not, of course,embraced nature religion with a corre-sponding intrinsic value theory, imple-menting exclusively the prescriptionsof those who consider nature sacred.As this case study and the emergenceof organizations such as the ForestService Employees for EnvironmentalEthics suggest, there is, despite thestrong utilitarian ethos that tends toguide American resource agencies(Geffen 2002), a struggle for theirhearts and minds. It is possible toimagine that these agencies (or, morelikely, various employees within them)will increasingly ground their pre-scriptions on a reverence for nature,rather than relying primarily on utili-tarian premises.

A third way is suggested by theconflict over Devils Tower/MatoTipila. Here, with recent statutesencouraging respect for AmericanIndian religion well in mind, govern-ment officials took seriously thenature-related religious perceptions ofthe region’s American Indian commu-nities. They also arranged for andencouraged dialogue among peoplewith competing religious perceptionsregarding proper behavior at this site,and educated the wider public withwhat they learned. The resulting man-agement plan did not satisfy everyone,

but thus far it seems that the majorityof Indians and climbers are willing tolive with the compromise nowendorsed by the court.

The best possible outcomes in dif-ficult cases such as these will probablybegin with an approach that mostresembles the third one, with dialogueamong contending parties. If solidmajorities of the contending parties donot support the outcome, it is unlikelythat any land protection scheme willsucceed. It is equally unlikely that thedecision will guarantee free religiouspractice or promote tolerance orrespect for religious diversity.

Nevertheless, it is also clear thatthere is no avoiding controversy, socareful deliberation over the valuesthat will guide decisions in difficultcases is indispensable. Put simply:What values are decisive? Put differ-ently: Which values are trumps?Although this is no place for a detailedargument, a foundation for one can bearticulated: Decision-making nowought not foreclose the opportunity topursue and protect morally importantvalues later. This expresses the pre-cautionary principle, which is increas-ingly recognized as a cornerstone forany environmental ethics. Indeed, theprecautionary principle is a pillar ofthe “Earth Charter,” which claims thatpreventing harm is “the best methodof environmental protection” andinsists that “when knowledge is limit-ed” we should “apply a precautionaryapproach.” The Earth Charter, whichalso lists the protection of biologicaldiversity and cultural diversity, and thequest for economic justice and demo-cratic decision-making, as its core val-ues, was submitted for ratification bythe United Nations General Assemblyon the occasion of the Earth Summitin Johannesburg in 2002, and will no


doubt be passionately promoted, andperhaps even ratified, sometime in thefuture (see Earth Charter Initiative2002).

Applied to the present and similarcases, such principles place a moralburden of proof on those who woulddramatically alter ecosystems whenthe available evidence indicates thatdoing so could seriously erode biolog-ical or cultural diversity, including reli-gious diversity. All of these are core

values of the Earth Charter, whichmoreover urges “special attention tothe rights of indigenous peoples andminorities.” In the case of both biolog-ical and cultural diversity, when suchdiversity is gone, all too often it is goneforever. This underscores the impor-tance of applying the precautionaryprinciple when considering and con-testing whether a place, or place-basedpractice, might merit protection.


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Joel Geffen, 3023 Fernwood Avenue, Los Angeles, California 90039; [email protected]

1

This is recreation, if you like, butthis recreation is set within creation.Some of the recreation is relaxation,unwinding from daily labors; deeperdown the re-creation is restoration ofperspective on the nature of life, reen-counter with the creation. Parks recre-ation preserves human life by re-creat-ing it. We figure out who we are andwhere we are. The last part of thatquestion must be answered in culture,for human life is “by nature” cultural.But the first part, the fundamentalground, is answered in nature. “Bynature,” too, we are embodied crea-tures, residents on landscapes, earth-lings, placed in a more inclusive, morecomprehensive community of life andlife support. In that sense, parks pro-tect a full answer to the question ofhuman identity.

Parks are philosophical places; let’splay with that idea. “Know thyself.”Socrates insisted: “An unexamined lifeis not worth living” (Plato, Apology:38). On that score he was quite right.Socrates also said, “You see, I am fondof learning. Now the country placesand trees won’t teach me anything,and the people in the city do” (Plato,Phaedrus: 230d). So he loved hisAthens, and we indeed ought to begood citizens. But Socrates was quite

wrong about learning nothing innature. We correct him: “Life in anunexamined world is not worthy liv-ing, either.” Socrates could have usedvisits to national parks, to wildernessareas, and that would have protectedhim from such error. He missed toomuch of value; missing what parkshave to offer, he did not have life asfully figured out as he thought. Toknow himself, he needed, a biologistwould say, a better adapted fit. Aphilosopher might say: a more inclu-sive identity.

Life and DeathLife and death is serious business.

Living and dying is the business of life;and now, in contrast with the dailybusiness workplace, in parks one isimmediately confronted with life per-sisting in the midst of its perpetualperishing. True, one is on vacation;one doesn’t want to be too somber.But the seasons are evident: springwith its flowering, fall with its dieback.I am at leisure, but the struggle outthere is perennial—eating and beingeaten, survival through adapted fit.That is the ultimate “dialectic,” if wemay use Socrates’ philosophical word:Life is a search with opposites in con-flict becoming complements in resolu-


Holmes Rolston III

Life and the Nature of Life—in Parks

Parks are places for recreation, and that suggests play, leisure, sport.Many parks are of exactly that kind, and fortunately so; we need our cityparks for softball games, our state parks for a family reunion. Recreationre-creates, rejuvenates people when they are worn from work. But out-

door, natural parks are much more, and more fortunately so. These granderparks in the greater outdoors provide dimensions of depth belied by their vaca-tional and recreational settings. Parks are places so protected that we can simul-taneously get “away from it all,” away from the workaday week, from the laborsof town, factory, farm, and “back to it all,” encountering the park-protectedreserves of elemental nature.

tion. Wild nature is a vast scene ofsprouting, budding, flowering, fruit-ing, passing away, passing life on.Birth, death, rebirth, life forever regen-erated—that is the law, the nature oflife.

Of course—especially if this is ulti-mately the way the world is made—wecannot escape this in town. There alsopeople age and perish, and reproduceand prosper, generation after genera-tion. But something about taking“time out” on vacation or the weekendand immersing oneself in a “naturereserve” confronts us more directlyand intensely than usual with this lifestruggle and life support in primordialnature. This is baseline nature. Thetrip starts out social, even political: Wehead for the park shown on the map asa legally mandated, legally designatedarea for preserving original nature. Wepass the gate and pay the admissionfee; we are inside the park’s officialboundaries. But politics and societysoon fade, and the natural historycommands the scene. And the firstcommandment is: Survive. Adapt. Eator be eaten. Life or death. Our firstobservation is: Life goes on—protect-ed in the parks but on its own, wildand free.

Sources and ResourcesParks are for recreation. Strip away

the human presence, and there is norecreation in the wilderness. So itmight seem that any associated valuelies entirely in these human recreation-al experiences, no matter how greatlynatural features in the park contributeto them. Perspectives shift, however,when the recreation turns to re-encounter the creation. Perhaps peo-ple in parks generate new levels of val-ued experiences—enjoying the sunset,for example, or bird watching—but

these are superimposed on sponta-neous natural values, some kinds ofwhich are not experiential. After all,the life-supporting ecosystems and thegenetic information coding the know-how organisms in their species linesuse to cope in these ecosystems oper-ate in the wild regardless of whetherhumans are present or aware of thesethings. The life and death and liferenewed were already going on, beforewe came as visitors. The trees werephotosynthesizing, capturing solarenergy, and the birds were feedingtheir nestlings, capturing caterpillars.

Forests and soil, sunshine and rain,rivers and sky, the everlasting hills, therolling prairies, the cycling seasons—these are superficially just pleasantscenes in which to recreate. At depththey are the surrounding creation thatsupports life. If one insists on theword, they are resources, but now itseems inadequate to call them recre-ational resources. They are the sourcesthat define life. They are the life sup-port system, the ecosystems thathumans inhabit. Here is life close to itsorigins.

Humans depend on air flow, watercycles, sunshine, photosynthesis,nitrogen fixation, decomposition bac-teria, fungi, the ozone layer, foodchains, insect pollination, soils, earth-worms, climates, oceans, and geneticmaterials. These ecological valuescontribute positively to human experi-ences. But they also seem to be thereapart from humans being here. Natureis an evolutionary ecosystem, withhumans a late addon.

True, the back-to nature ritual islargely symbolic: A camper’s groceriesstill come from the supermarket. Butfor precisely that reason many need atleast the symbolism of the cook-out,the fish fry from the day’s catch, the


drink of water dipped from the spring,the dried bones strewn beside thetrail, the warmth of a campfire, an eyeon the growing twilight, possibly athunderstorm, even swatting mosqui-toes—all of which immerse persons inthe natural order. We know the gutsyfeeling that comes with returning tothe basics, even if we stutter when wetry to put it in words. Life support bythe greater outdoors is not symbolismat all but literal and real. The park set-ting accentuates these touchstones,symbols set off from the everyday lifeof town and commerce, but quite gen-uine and authentic, primordially natu-ral.

In that sense parks put people intheir place. They take us out of cultureinto nature; we leave the city behindand go out into the country. Thetourist’s first impression is that this isnot where I live; the whole idea ofbeing a tourist is being somewhereelse from where you live. And a touristin wild nature is even farther fromhome in the city. But a second, anddeeper impression, is that this iswhere we do live, our cultures super-imposed on natural systems. Firstimpressions may be that we have gonerustic, gone “back to” something past;we take the weekend off in a world thatis unreal. But second impressions rundeeper. We have not gotten away fromit all; we have gotten back to it all.“Back to” metaphors, however, arealways a little worrisome. We’d bettersay: “down to” it all. We reach adimension of depth. We recontact thenatural certainties.

We come to see forests, for exam-ple, as a characteristic expression ofthe creative process. In a forest, as on adesert or the tundra, the realities ofnature cannot be ignored. This is truein all forests, but intensely true in big,

old forests protected in parks. The for-est is both presence and symbol offorces in natural systems that tran-scend human powers and human util-ity. Like the sea or the sky, the forest isa kind of archetype of the foundationsof the world. The central “goods” ofthe biosphere—forests and sky, sun-shine and rain, rivers and earth, theeverlasting hills, the cycling seasons,fauna and flora, hydrologic cycles,photosynthesis, soil fertility, foodchains, genetic codes, speciation andreproduction, succession and its reset-ting, life and death and life renewed—were in place long before humansarrived, though they have latelybecome human economic and socialresources.

Maybe this is a “national” forest,maybe a “state” forest. But the forestswere here before the United States wasa nation, before California was a state,before there ever was such a thing as anational or state park—and yes, inancient forests even some of the treeswere here before. Yes, we need to setaside these parkland forests, and peo-ple ought to visit “their” parks. But thedynamics and structures organizingthe forest do not come out of thehuman mind; a wild forest is some-thing wholly other than civilization. Itis presence and symbol of the timelessnatural givens that support everythingelse.

A pristine forest is prime naturalhistory, a relic of the way the worldwas for almost forever. The forest as atangible preserve in the midst of a cul-ture contributes to the human sense ofduration, antiquity, continuity, andidentity. A visit there regenerates thesense of human novelty. We were lis-tening to the latest news on the radioon the way in, but now that we arehere, we are rather less convinced that


we need to concern ourselves onlywith what we human beings have saidand done. Although park managerscommonly think of nature as “naturalresource,” we can soon go astray withthis category, if we see nature as mere-ly resource. A forest, a mountain, aprairie is more than resource, instru-mental to civilization. It is primeval,wild, creative source—resource for thewhole creation, we could say. Suchvalues may be soft. They are alsodeep.

Order and the WildIn parks, we recontact the natural

certainties? Yes, but, almost paradoxi-cally, we recontact both certainty anduncertainty, the permanent and thechanging, the stable and the sponta-neous, the predictable and the novel.More philosophically put: We con-front order and chaos. We go wild; wego where the Earth is still wild. True,order and chaos could be found hadwe stayed back in town—but order of adifferent order, so to speak, and chaosdifferent from that in the wild. Themeaning of wild in culture is differentfrom the meaning of wild in nature.The waterfall will still be there, wherewe had the picnic five years ago on mybirthday, and probably still someParry’s primrose. But the coyote thatmade off with the leftovers, while wewere lingering by the rocks below thefalls—he will be gone. Maybe, if we arelucky, we will see an ouzel again.

The natural processes, confrontedin the park, are regular, dependable:Gravity holds, the rains come, andoaks breed in kind. Nature is unifiedand intelligible, constant enough forlife support, including our own. Thisgeomorphological, meteorological,biochemical, ecological constancy is ofgreat value, indeed vital. In the park,

partly because of the leisure, partlybecause we are taken out of our sur-roundings of artifacts, we confront thiselemental nature.

But there is a polar value. In thepark, yes, there are park managers,supervising the visitors, also lookingout after the integrity of the park. Butthese managers are not managing thefauna and flora; this is not a botanicalor zoological garden. Life is on itsown, wild and free. Or if there is man-agement, it is hands-off, in deliberateeffort to let these animals be wild, to letnature take its course. The signs at thetrailhead urge us not to feed the chip-munks, beg though they do at the pic-nic rock below the waterfall. Theyneed to do their thing, get their ownfood—if they can. Only if on their owncan they preserve their own integrity.

Nature in the wild is ever the sameand never the same. True, there are theperennial natural givens, even whenthey are ever-changing. The daymoves from dawn to dusk, the seasonspass, plants grow, rivers flow, windsblow, even the rocks erode; change ispervasive. On the scale of deep time,some processes continue on and on,almost forever. Mountains are reliablythere generation after generation. Thewater cycles back, always moving.Parks give us this encounter, moreintensely than we are likely to find it intown.

But it is equally true that parks giveus nature in its spontaneous novelty.The mountains, reliably there, are justas reliably different in Yosemite and inYellowstone. By making each locationdifferent, wildness makes a favorabledifference. It makes each ecosystemhistoric, the more excellent because notwo are alike. Landscapes are nevertwice the same; indeed, even the aspenleaves in Yellowstone are never twice


the same. In the laboratory, scienceabstracts out the regularly recurringcomponents to attain predictive con-trol. On the farm, in agricultural fields,science is applied to ensure (so wehope, at least) the farmer a predictableharvest. But in the park, “out in thefield” (as we say), nature remainsunique and particular, wild. Whathappens there is always something of asurprise, as whether it will rain beforethe picnic is over, or the way theground squirrel evades the coyote, orjust when the last of the aspen leaveswill be gone.

The seasons come and go and aver-age out. The conflict and resolution isstatistically regular, we may say; overthe years about one-third of the elkwill not survive the winter. But this isrutting season now, and did you seethat fight last night, when the new bulltook over the harem? I wonder if theold bull had already bred the cows.Probably not, it is still early in the rut.I’ll bet that next year the calves will behis.

Yes, acorns make oaks, and oaksbreed in kind. And that old giant musthave made a million acorns. What apity that a bolt of lightning destroyedit last summer; it must have been a drystorm, because the old oak burnedbadly—the bark is off all around thetrunk. But the fire didn’t spread far.That osprey’s nest over there, notforty yards away, doesn’t seem to havebeen disturbed at all.

If we wish to be philosophicalabout this: There are natural possibil-ities in excess of what actually comesto pass, and the possible event thatdoes happen can be selected bychance or by animal choice or by someintermediate, partial autonomy forwhich we hardly yet have an adequatemodel. Maybe the new bull took over

because he had better genes; goodgenetic luck, should we say? Maybe hewas just lucky when the old one stum-bled in the den hole. Maybe the oakgot hit because it was a little taller thanthe others. Or maybe not, since thereis another one that is taller still. Maybeit was just unlucky; but lucky for theosprey. Parks are proof that nature ele-vates law into history, natural history;that life, as it persists in the midst of itsperpetual perishing, is always anadventure.

Wildness requires this creativemixing of the stable and the sponta-neous or, technically put, the idio-graphic and the nomothetic. Parksgive us direct experience with boththese dimensions of nature. Wildrefers to nature outside human con-trol. Within that domain, the referencecontinues to nature outside simplelawlike patterns. The park managersdo not control these events; neitherare they completely controlled natu-rally. A “wild” place needs life on itsown, each life defending its own self,its own kind, with order enough forthe support of life, but also turbulenceand ferment enough to make each lifeautonomous and particular.

Many processes may be determi-nate, but there will be the intersectionof causally unrelated lines, producingnovelty and unpredicted events.Individual events rattle around in thestatistics. Stability is always a dynamicstability that leads to innovativechange. The statistical trends developinto ongoing stories. Recent scienceaccentuates genuine contingency,openness mixed with determinatelaws. The result, on landscape scales,is idiographic places, beyond lawlikeregularity. Yellowstone is not celebrat-ed as a place where the laws of gravityare obeyed without exception or


because meiosis, mitosis, and photo-synthesis take place predictably there,as they do everywhere else.Yellowstone is celebrated because it islike no place else on Earth, no placeelse in the universe.

Parks give us nature with a propername, nature in its uniqueness. Yes,the waterfall will be reliably thereagain this year; but that waterfall isespecially good in June when theprimroses are flowering, tucked inthose rocks on the far side. An earlysettler named Copeland loved thesefalls, and they are named for him. Ihave been here half a dozen times; thefirst time was with Daddy before hedied. Parks locate us with embodiedpresence, mixing our own personalstories with these unique places.

Nature and CultureIt is difficult to visit a large national

park and not have a strong sense of“externality,” of my subject self beinghere, encountering an objective worldout there. Yes, the trees were not greenuntil I arrived, nor will they be after Iam gone. But yes, more certainly, thosetrees were there (and photosynthesiz-ing) before I came and will continue todo so after I am gone. It is difficult tobe in a large modern city and not havea strong sense of “internality,” ofmyself emplaced in a world thathumans have built—surrounded byartifacts, not here before humanscame, and which would not long sur-vive, were we gone. Visiting parks, onegoes “outside.” One senses how muchin the world was put in place withoutany human activity. In that sense,parks are the most “outlandish” of ourrecreational opportunities, or wecould even say our most “outstand-ing” opportunity. There the world“stands out,” over against us, different;

and we cultural animals know we aremomentary “stand outs” in the world.

We switch systems, from culture tonature. But then in dialectic we searchfor nested hierarchy, culture in nature,the nature in culture. Everything sur-vives only with adapted fit—so thebiologists insist. But the park visitorhas a puzzling “fitness problem” (so tospeak): how to fit one’s civilized beingto this wild nature. Not only does thepark visitor witness the dialectic ofconflict and resolution in nature, thepark per se has dialectical value. Thepark puts cultured humans inencounter with spontaneous wildnature. That, too, requires of the visi-tor conflict and resolution: How am Iover against this wild nature? How amI in harmony with these elementalsources? Parks, we promised, confrontus with the vital question of humanidentity.

Half of the answer lies in life sup-port, culture superimposed on nature.Culture remains tethered to thebiosystem and the options within builtenvironments, however expanded,provide no release from nature. Anecology always lies in the backgroundof culture, natural givens that supporteverything else. Some sort of inclusiveenvironmental fitness is required ofeven the most advanced culture.Whatever their options, however theirenvironments are rebuilt, humansremain residents in ecosystems. Thisis a truth for rural and urban people,but what better place to learn it than inparks, where we turn aside from ourlabors and take this wider, more eco-logical perspective? When we crossthe park boundary, we cross over fromthe cultured environment to baselinenature, to the natural history on whichhuman life is always founded.

The second half of the answer


seems to require a human discontinu-ity with spontaneous wild nature.Hiking back from the waterfall, I didspot an ouzel, admiring her skill dip-ping in and out of the cold water andalso, beside the stream, a candy wrap-per, which I packed out. The ouzel isnatural; the wrapper is an artifact anddoesn’t belong here. But then my tentis artifact, too, and my cooking pots,and do I belong here? The critical dis-tinguishing factor is the deliberatedmodification of nature that separateshumans in their cultures from wildnature.

Expanding such examples into ametaphor, the whole of civilization isproducing artifacts in contrast to theproducts of wild spontaneous nature.“Man is by nature a political animal”(Aristotle, Politics, I: 2.1253a). Peopleare animals who build themselves apolis, a city. “Man is the animal forwhom it is natural to be artificial”(Garvin 1953: 378). Homo sapiens is“the natural alien” (Evernden 1993).The really natural thing for humans todo is not to go natural but to build aculture differentiating (alienating) our-selves from nature.

Wild animals do not form cumula-tive, transmissible cultures. The deter-minants of animal and plant activityare never anthropological, political,economic, technological, scientific,philosophical, ethical, or religious.Any transmissible culture, and espe-cially a high-technology culture, doesneed to be discriminated from nature.The workday week, I sit in an engi-neering office for Boeing, behind acomputer. Boeings fly, as wild geesefly, using the laws of aerodynamics.The flight of wild geese is impressive.But, thinking it over by the campfire, Ineed insight into the differencesbetween the ways humans fly in their

engineered, financed jets and the waysgeese fly with their genetically con-structed, metabolically poweredwings. Most of their information isgenetically coded and transmitted. Somuch of what I am is by acquiredinformation, culturally transmitted.Figuring this out is all the more force-ful a demand because I am buildingthose Boeings within a hundred milesof old-growth forest that I as an envi-ronmentalist am concerned about sav-ing.

Especially our moral life does notseem to get any authorizing in nature.Be just. Be charitable. Save the spottedowls, even if loggers lose their jobs—but is this either just or charitable?Also, those loggers cut the timbers formy suburban home—and was I notjust thinking that humans by naturebuild their cities? One moment I seempart of nature and the next I seemapart from it. This question doesn’tbother me in town, but in the park Icannot escape it. And maybe I shouldbother about this question in town,when I return, because I do want a cul-ture in harmony with the nature fromwhich it has also made exodus.

Nature and SpiritThe park is demanding a dialogue

between nature and spirit. Parksrefresh our contact with life animatedand rising up from the ground. That isthe perennial “giving birth” at the ety-mological root of the word nature (inour word native, also in the cognatepregnant). Parks preserve opportunityfor people to reconnect with this ani-mating earth. Biologists, especiallyfield biologists such as the park natu-ralists, are never too comfortable withthe phenomenon of life viewed reduc-tively as nothing but matter in motion.There is vitality, animation (recalling


the Latin anima: breath, spirit).This spiritedness is evident in the

animals. Animals hunt and howl, findshelter, seek out their habitats andmates, care for their young, flee fromthreats, grow hungry, thirsty, hot,tired, excited, sleepy. Our gaze isreturned by an animal that itself has aconcerned outlook. We enjoy organicform in spontaneous locomotion, onthe loose. There is a never-ceasinghunt through the environment forfood, an ever-alert hiding from preda-tors. Human emotions are stimulatedby animal bodily motions and drawnthrough these into animal emotions,invited to empathize with “somebodythere” behind the fur and feathers.Television wildlife programs, art, andphotography are hardly substitutes forthe real thing. The autonomy and sur-prise, the spirit is gone.

But the most challenging spirited-ness here is right behind my own eyes,my subjective self confronting thisworld from which I have evolved. Imust figure out how and why I belonghere; and now it seems that, self that Iam, with my inwardness, maybe moreintense than that in the animals, I amalso some kind of overseer, looking outand maybe further out than the ani-mals. Humans are cognate with thehumus, made of dust, yet unique intheir capacity to view the world theyinhabit. They rise up from the earthand look over their world (Greek:anthropos, to rise up, look up).Animals have the capacity to see onlyfrom their niche; humans can take aview from no niche; they can look overthe whole. Skeptics and relativists maysay that humans just see from anotherniche; and certainly when humansappraise soil or timber as resources,they see from within their niche. Buthumans can do more, and the proof of

this is in parks.Roger DiSilvestro finds something

radically novel about humans settingaside their wildland parks:

Territorial boundaries are ancient;they are artifacts dating from a pri-mordial world. They are, inessence, established for theexploitation of the earth.... Only inthe past century has humanitybegun to set the protection of wild-lands as a broad social goal, cre-ating national parks, nationalforests, wildlife refuges, even pro-tected wilderness areas. This issomething truly new under thesun, and every protected wildplace is a monument to humani-ty’s uniqueness. The greatest qual-itative difference between us andnonhuman animals is not that wecan change and modify our envi-ronment. Practically every livingcreature does that.... But we arethe first living things, as far as weknow, to make a choice about theextent to which we will apply ourabilities to influence the environ-ment. We not only can do, but wecan choose not to do. Thus, whatis unique about the boundaries weplace around parks and othersanctuaries is that these bound-aries are created to protect aregion from our own actions.... Nolonger can we think of ourselvesas masters of the natural world.Rather, we are partners with it(DiSilvestro 1993: xiv–xv).

So the park experience, though itstarts recreational, culminates withthis re-creating, deepening experienceof the human spirit, at once settingourselves apart from the park, postingthese unprecedented territorialboundaries where we resolve to let lifebe in its spontaneous naturalness, andin so doing become what we uniquelyare: Homo sapiens, the wise species,knowing ourselves (if we may say so)as “spectacular” (outstanding over-seers) in this spectacular world we


inhabit. We are free in this world, freeto celebrate it, and glad to be embod-ied and resident in this wonder-full

creation. In that sense, parks are out-standing opportunities to keep lifewonderful.


ReferencesDiSilvestro, R. L. 1993. Reclaiming the Last Wild Places: A New Agenda for

Biodiversity. New York: John Wiley & Sons.Evernden, N. 1993. The Natural Alien: Humankind and Environment. Toronto:

University of Toronto Press.Garvin, L. 1953. A Modern Introduction to Ethics. Cambridge, Mass.: Houghton

Mifflin.

Holmes Rolston III, Department of Philosophy, Colorado State University, FortCollins, Colorado 80523; [email protected]

1

Canada’s network of protectedareas originated with the establish-ment of Banff National Park in 1885.Since then, a complex array of protect-ed areas has evolved that reflects theinvolvement of federal governmentagencies and territorial, provincial,and regional levels of government.These commitments have been aug-mented by more limited participationby local levels of government but agrowing involvement by non-govern-mental organizations (see Deardenand Rollins 2002; Turner, Wiken, andLopoukhine 1999).

A number of observations can bemade about Canada’s protected areasthat are relevant to the role of categoryV areas. First, despite considerableprogress during the 1990s in the

expansion of Canada’s protected area,less than 10% of the country is cur-rently protected (see Boyd 2002;Dearden and Rollins 2002). Second,progress towards completing a repre-sentative system of protected areasvaries considerably between therespective provinces and territories.Third, for the greater part of the histo-ry of protected areas in Canada, theprevailing approach has focused onthe protection of pristine environ-ments, wilderness, and wildlife.Canada’s continuing commitment tothe protection of its biodiversity andecosystems reflects this perspectiveand together with the emphasis onpublic lands shows many similaritiesto the national park tradition of theUnited States. A fourth characteristic,


Guy S. SwinnertonSusan Buggey

Protected Landscapes in Canada:Current Practice and Future

Significance

Canada’s network of protected areas encompasses the complete spec-trum of protected area management categories recognized by theIUCN. Although category V areas, protected landscapes/seascapes,comprise nearly 15% of Canada’s protected areas as recorded in the

official 1997 United Nations List, this designation and approach to protectedarea management is not widely known or its relevance fully recognized by manyof the country’s protected area agencies or Canadians in general. The articlereviews the status of category V areas in Canada by providing a nationaloverview that illustrates the diversity of designations included within category V.Notwithstanding some inconsistency in the use of category V in Canada, there isa growing appreciation of the significance of the protected landscape/seascapeapproach as evidenced through the adoption of bioregional conservation land-scape models that involve connected networks and conservation stewardship bylocal people within working landscapes. In addition, there is increasing recogni-tion of the interdependence of nature and human activity, and specifically thesimilarities that are found in the management approaches for protected land-scapes/seascapes and cultural landscapes.

and one which is also similar to thesituation that has existed in the UnitedStates, is the dilemma demonstratedby national and provincial park agen-cies in dealing with local people andtheir imprint on the landscape withinprotected areas (see Allen 1993;Swinnerton 1999). Finally, there is arecent growing recognition of the needto complement the more traditionalapproaches to protected area designa-tion and management with whatBeresford and Phillips (2000) havereferred to as “a new paradigm forprotected areas” (see Dearden andRollins 2002; Swinnerton 2001).Illustrative of this new paradigm aremany of the distinguishing character-istics of the IUCN protected area man-agement category V, the protectedlandscape/seascape.

Protected landscapes are manifes-tations of the symbiotic relationshipbetween natural and cultural heritage(see Mitchell and Buggey 2000). Inthese areas, biodiversity protectioncoincides with sustaining and enhanc-ing the social and economic stability ofan area and the quality of life of its res-idents. As such, category V areas arelived-in landscapes that demonstratethe on-going interaction between peo-ple and their means of livelihood thatis primarily dependent on the basicresources (natural and cultural) of thearea. The protected landscape con-cept refers not only to a product butalso to a landscape managementprocess that accommodates andguides change.

“Linking Protected Areas withWorking Landscapes ConservingBiodiversity” was the theme of theThird Science and Management ofProtected Areas Association(SAMPA) Conference, that was heldin Calgary, Alberta in 1997, and pro-

vides evidence of this broadeningapproach in Canada (see Munro andWillison 1998). However, Searle’s(2000) subsequent observation thatAdrian Phillips’ presentation on work-ing landscapes and protected areas atthe conference was an “intriguingidea” provides a cogent reminder ofthe relative lack of awareness of thecategory V concept in Canada. Morerecently, the 2001 Annual GeneralMeeting and Workshop of theCanadian Council on EcologicalAreas focused its attention on theIUCN classification of terrestrial andmarine protected areas within Canada,and specifically on the application ofcategory V protected landscapes/seascapes and category VI managedresource protected areas.

Protected Landscapes withinCanada’s Protected Area

System: A National OverviewAs a result of the diversity of agen-

cies and functions that protected areasserve in Canada, it is not surprisingthat consistent and comparable infor-mation on Canada’s protected areas isdifficult to obtain. Despite this limita-tion, a number of sources do providedata on Canada’s protected areas interms of the six IUCN protected areamanagement categories. The Canad-ian Council on Ecological Areas spon-sors the Canadian Conservation AreasDatabase (CCAD) that provides themost comprehensive record of pro-tected areas in Canada (see Turner,Wiken, and Lopoukhine 1999). Morelimited in scope is the Parks andProtected Areas Land Base Inventorythat is compiled by the formerFederal–Provincial Parks Council(now the Canadian Parks Council). Tovarying degrees, these organizations,as well as individual park and protect-


ed area agencies, provide the basicdata that are compiled in the UnitedNations List of Protected Areas andthe World Conservation MonitoringCentre’s (WCMC) Protected AreaDatabase.

The following overview of categoryV areas in Canada is based on infor-mation taken from the WCMCProtected Area Database for 1997.Table 1 illustrates the relative impor-tance of category V areas withinCanada’s total protected area network.

Protected areas in Canada record-ed as category V protected land-scapes/seascapes account for less thanone-quarter of the total number ofprotected areas in the country and lessthan 10% in terms of the total areaprotected. By comparison, the 1997United Nations List, which is restrict-ed to protected areas of at least 1,000ha, records 127 category V protectedareas for Canada with a total area of9,217 km2. This represents 14.8% ofthe 861 protected areas and 9.7% ofthe 949,005 km2 that comprise thetotal protected area of Canada (IUCN1998).

If the 1997 WCMC category V dataare broken down on the basis ofprovincial and territorial distribution,

the largest number of areas occurs inOntario (59.5%), whereas Québecaccounts for a very substantial amountof the total area recorded as category Vin Canada (83.1%). The large numberof sites recorded for Ontario is largelythe result of considering conservationauthority areas as protected land-scapes. In the case of Québec, thelarge area recorded as category V isprimarily due to wildlife managementareas and wildlife sanctuaries beingincluded under this category. An indi-

cation of the diversity of different pro-tected area designations withinCanada that are recorded as categoryV is provided in Table 2. Based on theWCMC database, the 772 individualsites have been assigned to the desig-nations used by the respective agen-cies and authorities. Conservationauthority areas account for the largestnumber of sites (42.2%), followed byregional district parks (11.3%),wildlife management areas (8.8%), andrecreation sites (8.5%). In terms of theactual area within respective designa-tions, wildlife sanctuaries comprise byfar the largest area (82.5% of the total)followed by provincial parks (5.5%)and wildlife management areas(4.9%).


IUCN category Number of sites % Area (km2) %Ia/1b 630 19.5 32,964 3.5II 1,046 32.5 400,233 41.9III 70 2.2 217 <0.1IV 563 17.5 398,592 41.8V 772 23.9 93,056 9.8VI 143 4.4 28,041 2.9Total 3,224 100.0 953,103 99.9Source: WCMC Protected Area Database (1997)

Table 1. Canada’s protected areas network.

Although the numerical data pre-sented in Table 1 and 2 provide anoverview of the relative importanceand composition of category V areasin Canada, caution should be exer-cised in assigning too much signifi-cance to specific figures. Some incon-sistency and discrepancies exist, not

least because individual agenciesinclude different protected area desig-nations under category V. For exam-ple, although Québec accounts for83.1% of the total area of category Vprotected lands in Canada, a morerecent analysis of the province’s pro-tected areas system indicated that


Designation/Description Number of areasAgreement Forest 28Canadian Heritage River 3Conservation Area 64Conservation Authority 326Crown Reserve 1Ecological Reserve 4Game Preserve 1Heritage Area 1Heritage River 1National Capital Commission Area 13National Historic Park 3National Park 1National Wildlife Area 1Natural Area 1Nature Park 27Nature Reserve 1Provincial Historic Site 1Provincial Park 43Recreation Area 2Recreation Site 66Regional District Park 87Wilderness Area 1Wildlife Area 1Wildlife Management Area 68Wildlife Protection Area 1Wildlife Sanctuary 26Total 772Source: WCMC Database 1997

Table 2. Category V areas in Canada and their protected area designations.

there were no designations used with-in the province that currently equateto category V (Québec Ministry of theEnvironment 2000).

On-going research by Swinnerton(2001) involving field verification ofselected category V sites acrossCanada and discussions with relevantagency personnel suggests that morecareful attention needs to be given toidentifying protected areas as categoryV. Such an undertaking will inevitablyenhance the accuracy and credibilityof the resultant data that are assem-bled, but more importantly, theprocess should result in a clearer artic-ulation of the relevance of the categoryV to protected areas in Canada. A sub-stantial number of the areas that arecurrently recorded under category Vwould likely be assigned to a moreappropriate IUCN protected areamanagement category or in someinstances deleted from the list where

adequate consideration for the protec-tion of biodiversity is not the intent.

Examples ofCategory V Protected AreasMany of the protected areas across

Canada that are recognized as catego-ry V on the CCAD and WCMC listsprovide very good working examplesof the different circumstances withinwhich the category V approach to pro-tected area management is appropriate(Swinnerton 2001).

The Cooking Lake–BlackfootGrazing, Wildlife and ProvincialRecreation Area in Alberta is a 97-km2

area that is managed in an integratedfashion to accommodate cattle graz-ing, wildlife management, trapping,natural gas extraction, and a widerange of year-round recreation pur-suits (Figure 1). Limited-season recre-ational hunting and year-roundAboriginal hunting also occurs. Cattle


Figure 1. One of the improved meadows for cattle grazing in the Cooking Lake–BlackfootGrazing, Wildlife and Provincial Recreation Area. This picture was taken soon after seed-ing of the meadows. Photo by Guy S. Swinnerton.

grazing within the area demonstratesthe interdependence between the pro-tected area and the adjacent agricul-tural landscape. One of the key fea-tures of this category V area is theimportance of the multi-stakeholderprocess that was followed in thepreparation of the management planand its subsequent successful imple-mentation.

A very different type of category Varea is represented by the NationalCapital (Ottawa) Greenbelt. This areacomprises 20,000 ha of green spaceand rural landscape that surroundsCanada’s capital to the south of theOttawa River (Figure 2). The green-belt is publicly owned, and a masterplan outlines a commitment to main-taining the natural environment andsupporting a vibrant rural community.In practice, this commitment requirespartnerships between the NationalCapital Commission, other levels anddepartments of government, localcommunities, and tenant farmers.

Through this approach, it is intendedto protect the significant natural andcultural resources of the area, safe-guard the working rural landscapefound within the greenbelt, and pro-vide opportunities for outdoor recre-ation.

Hecla/Grindstone Provincial Parkis located on Lake Winnipeg inManitoba. Approximately 2% (2,200ha) of the park is assigned to a heritageland use category. This designationapplies to sites that are of significanceto Icelandic and Aboriginal cultures.The Icelandic village of Hecla is expe-riencing a period of revitalization withdescendents of the original Icelandicsettlers returning to the village to live.An advisory committee comprisingformer landowners and provincialparks staff has established guidelinesto ensure that any development fits inwith the essential character of the orig-inal Icelandic fishing village. The har-bor at Hecla Village (Figure 3) contin-ues to support commercial fishing,


Figure 2. Productive agricultural land and woodland within the National Capital Greenbelt.Photo by Guy S. Swinnerton.

and bed-and-breakfast accommoda-tion has been established in a numberof homes.

Potential for Expandingthe Application of theCategory V Concept

The potential exists for justifiablyadding a variety of areas to the catego-ry V list. The Great Sand Hills inSaskatchewan provide just one exam-ple. This area includes the largestnative prairie remaining in theprovince and the current land use planprovides for both habitat protectionand sustainable use within the work-ing landscape. Other examplesinclude appropriate sections of a num-ber of the rivers in the CanadianHeritage Rivers System such as theGrand, the Humber, and the Thamesin Ontario. The buffer zones of someof Canada’s biosphere reserves exhib-it many of the characteristics and plan-ning and management approaches thatare associated with category V areas(see Swinnerton 1999). Examplesinclude Redberry Lake in Saskatch-

ewan, Mount Arrowsmith in BritishColumbia, Charlevoix in Québec,Riding Mountain in Manitoba, and theNiagara Escarpment in Ontario.Relevance of the category V conceptto coastal and marine protected areasshould not be dismissed either. TheSaguenay–St. Lawrence Marine Parkand the proposed Lake SuperiorMarine Conservation Areas are justtwo examples.

There is also evidence that the cat-egory V concept will become increas-ingly relevant if completion of repre-sentative protected area systems andprotection of their associated biodi-versity are to be achieved. In Albertafor example, the inclusion of a “her-itage rangeland” category within theproposed new Parks and ProtectedAreas Act has been necessary in orderto provide the legislative basis for pro-tecting representative areas of theprovince’s Grassland Natural Region(see Swinnerton 1999).

Another situation where the cate-gory V approach is relevant to biodi-versity protection involves establish-


Figure 3. The harbor at Hecla on Lake Winnipeg with the Icelandic Village in the background.Photo by Guy S. Swinnerton.

ing connecting corridors between coreprotected areas. The Algonquin–Adirondack corridor along theFrontenac Axis and the ThousandIslands–Frontenac Arch BiosphereReserve will require the continuationof small-scale agriculture and wood-land management together withappropriate forms of rural-based sus-tainable tourism. This approach willreflect many of the underlying princi-ples of protected landscapes. Theapplicability of the biosphere reserveconcept and the category V approachto protecting the landscape of theBeaver Hills–Cooking Lake MoraineArea in Alberta has been suggested(Burak and Swinnerton 1998). At thepresent time, a “Beaver Hills Sustain-able Community Initiative” is beingactively pursued in order to protectthis disjunct portion of the DryMixedwood Subregion of the BorealForest Natural Region of Alberta whilesupporting a high quality of life forlocal residents and adjacent communi-ties. The initiative involves ParksCanada, provincial agencies, munici-palities, industry, non-governmentorganizations, and landowners.Finally, there are numerous opportu-nities in Canada to demonstrate therelationship between the category Vconcept and cultural landscapes.

Cultural Landscapesand Protected

Landscapes/SeascapesConventionally, natural and cultur-

al heritage have been widely separatedin North American society. Rooted indistinct academic spheres of the sci-ences and the arts, the divide has beenreinforced by many program adminis-trative structures. This disjunction haslong obscured the common groundshared by natural and cultural her-

itage. The recent emergence of pro-tected landscapes/seascapes in thenatural heritage protection movement,and of cultural landscapes in the his-toric preservation movement, has builtawareness of mutual interest: placeswhere human interaction with theenvironment over time has shaped thedistinctive character of the landscape.The sphere of protection differs forprotected landscapes/seascapes andcultural landscapes: protected land-scapes/seascapes focus primarily on aharmonious relationship betweenhuman activity and nature, biologicaldiversity, and ecosystem integrity,while cultural landscapes emphasize asocietal interaction with nature, con-tinuing historical processes, and cul-tural meaning. Nonetheless, protectedlandscapes/seascapes and culturallandscapes often have much in com-mon, particularly the involvement oflocal people and communities in safe-guarding social and cultural continu-ity related to place.

Like protected landscapes/sea-scapes, cultural landscapes center onhuman interrelationships with the nat-ural environment, “a diversity of man-ifestations of the interaction betweenhumankind and its natural environ-ment,” to use UNESCO’s language inthe World Heritage Convention’sOperational Guidelines. Culturallandscapes often encompass evolvedtechniques of sustainable land use,which have been developed inresponse to the characteristics andlimitations of the natural environmentand which support biological diversi-ty; many embody a specific spiritualrelation to nature. Many protectedlandscapes/seascapes are character-ized by elements similar to those iden-tifying evolved, continuing culturallandscapes: they “exhibit significant


material evidence of ... evolution overtime,” they “retain an active social rolein contemporary society closely asso-ciated with the traditional way of life,”and “the evolutionary process is stillin progress.” In other protected land-scapes/seascapes, the material evi-dence is much more limited, likeningthese areas more closely to associativecultural landscapes, where “powerfulreligious, artistic or cultural associa-tions of the natural element rather thanmaterial cultural evidence” define theessential character (UNESCO 1999,cl. 37–39; Mitchell and Buggey 2000).The cultural processes of these land-scapes, whether hunting and gather-ing, agricultural, or maritime, aresteeped in knowledge and under-standing of the natural environment.They have evolved over centuries inresponse to its opportunities and con-straints as well as a society’s experi-ences. Scenic quality, diverse habitats,traditional land use patterns, and localcustoms, livelihoods, and beliefs,which are all significant to protectedlandscapes/seascapes, are also fre-quent characteristics of cultural land-scapes. Management approaches forprotected landscapes/seascapes andcultural landscapes may have manysimilarities.

The Rideau Canal, connectingOttawa, Canada’s capital, andKingston, on Lake Ontario, is anexcellent example of the commonground between protected landscapesand cultural landscapes. Designated asboth a national historic site and aCanadian heritage river and also listedas a category V protected landscape,the waterway is the central feature of a202-km evolved, continuing culturallandscape in eastern Ontario.Constructed through remote wilder-ness between 1826 and 1832 as part of

Britain’s strategy for the defence of theCanadas, the canal joined the water-sheds of two major river systems andopened the Rideau corridor to settle-ment and economic development. Itutilizes a series of excavated channels,masonry locks, dams, weirs, andembankments to link existing naturalwetlands into a through waterway.Extensive drowned lands resultedfrom the slack water system that engi-neers used to raise shallow waters tonavigable levels and to regulate waterflow. While this activity significantlyaltered the regional ecosystem, it alsocreated new wetlands, including newor substantially enlarged lakes (ParksCanada 2000). Along the corridor,agricultural settlements, strategicallysited villages, mills located to capital-ize on water power resources, and fieldand circulation patterns that shapedthe 19th-century rural landscape allhave evolved economically, socially,and technologically in response to thenatural and cultural environment overnearly two centuries. “Cottage coun-try” emerged in response to theregion’s scenic and recreational attrac-tions. Now an active recreationalwaterway owned and operated byParks Canada, the canal remains fullyoperational along its original courseand is integrated through federal andmunicipal planning processes with its26 adjacent heritage communities.Woodlands, wetlands, and islands ofthe corridor ecosystem, comprising awide range of habitats for flora andfauna, are valued for their historicalconnection as well as their ecologicalimportance (Figure 4). The canal’scommemorative integrity statement,which focuses on historical values andguides planning and management, rec-ognizes a significant environmentalstewardship role for the canal


“because the waterway and the corri-dor’s ecosystem are inextricablyjoined” (Parks Canada 2000).

Many cultural landscapes associat-ed with First Nations people may alsoqualify equally as category V protect-ed landscapes/seascapes, although fewhave been listed as such to date. Eventheir identification as cultural heritagehas been recent. The 1990s saw a sig-nificant shift in the recognition of val-ues in places associated with the histo-ry of Aboriginal peoples from a focuson archeological resources and materi-al culture analysis, to ethno-archeolo-gy, and then to cultural landscapes.The new direction underlines theinvolvement of local people, particu-larly elders, and their long and inti-mate connection with the land. A coreprinciple accords respect and weightin decision-making to traditionalknowledge related to the land, includ-ing traditional ecological knowledge,that incorporates Aboriginal world

views, oral narrative traditions, andthe inseparability of cultural and natu-ral values. Many indigenous peoplesidentify traditional knowledge closelytied to place at the heart of their cul-tural identity. This focus recognizesthat many people conceive landscapefundamentally in spiritual rather thanmaterial terms, and that they regardthe land as sacred and see themselvesas an integral part of this holistic andliving landscape, whose spirits,resources, and accommodation ofthem they respect (Buggey 1999). Theapproach shares considerable groundwith the principles and guidelineswith regard to indigenous and tradi-tional peoples laid out in the WorldCommission on Protected Area’sseries on best practices for protectedareas (Beltrán 2000).

The Fall Caribou CrossingNational Historic Site on the lowerKazan River (Harvaqtuuq) in Nunavutis a cultural landscape which com-


Figure 4. Settlement pattern, wetlands, and woodlands at Burritt’s Rapids on the RideauCanal, Ontario. Photo by Paul Couture.

memorates the importance of the fallcaribou hunt to the inland Inuit and totheir survival through the long, harshwinter in the eastern Arctic. It is “anexample of the cultural meaning of thearctic landscape to the Inuit whoseapplication and adaptation of theircultural knowledge allowed them tosurvive for centuries...” (Harvaqtuuq1997). Flowing through a series oflakes across tundra barren lands to itsmouth at Baker Lake (Qaman’tuaq),the Kazan lies on the migration routeof the Kaminuriak caribou herd.Estimated at 320,000 strong, the herdmoves north across the river inJune/July and then in August/September crosses south again for thewinter, reportedly the “largest move-ment of land mammals in the world”(Canadian Heritage Rivers System,n.d.). The herd’s calving grounds arenot far away, and caribou trails criss-cross the area (Figure 5). For centuries

the Inuit have frequented this rivernorth of the treeline, where spring andfall caribou hunts shaped their season-al rounds. Downwind of where thecaribou crossed the river, the Inuitestablished camps to await the ani-mals’ crossing. Traditional beliefs andpractices guided preparation andbehavior for the hunt. Tent rings,hearths, hunting blinds, and foodcaches, especially in rocky areas, speakto the long Inuit presence. Inuksuitmark the landscape; the meaning ofeach can be interpreted only by thosewho hold the traditional knowledgerelated to it. Songs composed primari-ly of series of place names tell theirjourneys (Keith 1995).

Conservation planning and presen-tation undertaken for the culturallandscape, which lies on Inuit-ownedlands in the traditional territory of theHarvaqtuurmiut people, have beendesigned to safeguard the integrity of


Figure 5. Caribou trails near Piqqiq, the fall hunting camp on the Kazan River, Nunavut. Photoby Archaeological Services Branch, Parks Canada.

the traditional relationship of theinland Inuit to the fall caribou crossingplace. In the absence of legal protec-tion, the Harvaqtuuq Historic SiteCommittee of Baker Lake and ParksCanada developed a conservation andpresentation report with indicators formeasuring the “health” of the site. Itsimplementation plan addresses low-impact land use, future land use poli-cy, developments affecting water qual-ity and water levels of the river, and thehealth of the caribou herd, as well asrecording Inuktitut place names, oraltraditions, and archeological sites intoa GIS. Items in the implementationplan are linked with various Nunavutplanning and resource managementauthorities. A community guardianmonitoring program relies on memberobservations of significant changes,threats, or looting. Traditional Inuitvalues and beliefs give direction for

proper conduct in visitation, opera-tion, protection, and interpretation atthe site (Harvaqtuuq 1997). TheKazan is also a designated Canadianheritage river, in part to help in pre-serving the traditional Inuit way of lifeand in part for its outstanding wilder-ness recreation values.

Sahyoue/Edacho in the NorthwestTerritories are sacred sites of theSahtu Dene people, which they haveused since time immemorial. The twopeninsulas comprise nearly 6,000 km2

known as Grizzly Bear Mountain andScented Grass Hills at the western endof Great Bear Lake. Open boreal forestleading up from beach ridges (Figure6) provides woodland caribou winterhabitat. Moose, caribou, beaver,marten, ducks, fish, and otherresources have sustained Sahtu Denetraditional land uses and lifestylesbased on hunting, trapping, fishing,


Figure 6. The beach at Sahyoue/Edacho, Northwest Territories. Photo by John McCormick.

camping, gathering medicinal plants,and knowing the land. While the phys-ical resources of the peninsulas arelargely natural, cultural values trans-form these places from natural to asso-ciative cultural landscapes.

The fundamental relationship ofthe Sahtu Dene with Sahyoue/Edachois expressed in the continuing culturalmeaning, ecological integrity, and bio-logical diversity of the landscape.While Western science has longviewed culture and nature as separatespheres, Aboriginal world views see aholistic universe in which the cosmo-logical, geographic, ecological, cultur-al, and spiritual are intimately inter-twined. Ancient narratives of theSahtu Dene related to Sahyoue/Edacho tell of giant animals whosebodies comprise specific features ofthe landscape as well as ancestral spir-it beings and shamans whose heroicactions made the earth safer and sus-taining for those who continue topractise behavior respectful of thespirits. Other stories guide them inland use and relations with animals;still others warn of dangers and directbehavior. Through shapes, names,spirits, and behavior, places act asmnemonic devices for recalling thenarratives that instruct the peoplefrom generation to generation inknowing and living with this complexlandscape. Protection of these sacredsites and the associated telling of thestories are therefore essential to thecontinuity of Sahtu Dene culture andlivelihood (Hanks 1996). While desig-nation as a national historic site (1996)carries no legal protection, interimland withdrawal in accordance withthe Northwest Territories ProtectedAreas Strategy (2001) provides suchprotection while stakeholders apply itsframework to work towards long-term

safeguards and management consis-tent with its ecological and culturalvalues.

As these case studies illustrate, cul-tural landscapes often share commonground with protected landscapes/seascapes, where human interactionwith the natural environment hasresulted over time in a distinctive land-scape. In evolved, continuing culturallandscapes such as the Rideau Canalcorridor, the ecosystem is an integralpart of the historic canal landscape,from construction to settlement torecreation. In Aboriginal culturallandscapes, biological diversity andecosystem integrity are intimatelybound up with cosmological, social,cultural, and spiritual relationships ofthe people long associated with theland. Further explorations of thisemerging common ground in naturaland cultural heritage as represented byprotected landscapes/seascapes andcultural landscapes can continue tocontribute to better understanding oftheir values, resources, and effectiveprotection mechanisms.

ConclusionThis article has demonstrated the

relevance and applicability of IUCNprotected area management categoryV, protected landscapes/seacapes, toCanada’s protected areas network andheritage conservation in general. Theperspective confirms that protectedlandscapes should no longer be con-sidered solely as a Eurocentric con-cept. Consequently, an on-going taskis to convince protected area agenciesacross Canada and Canadians in gen-eral of this reality.

[Author’s note: The 2003 UnitedNations List of protected areas revealsthat the 765 category V sites in


Canada account for 16.9% of the totalnumber of sites assigned to one of thesix IUCN management categories, andthat their combined area of 1,191,307

ha represents 1.2% of the country’sprotected area assigned to a specificIUCN category (Chape et al. 2003).]


ReferencesAllen, B. 1993. Management strategies for protected landscapes. In Partners in Stewardship:

Proceedings of the Seventh Conference on Research and Resource Management in Parks and onPublic Lands. W.E. Brown and S.D. Veirs, Jr., eds. Hancock, Mich.: The George WrightSociety, 269–278.

Beltrán, J., ed. 2000. Indigenous and Traditional Peoples and Protected Areas: Principles,Guidelines and Case Studies. World Commission on Protected Areas Best Practice ProtectedArea Guidelines Series no. 4. Gland, Switzerland, and Cambridge, U.K.: IUCN.

Boyd, D.R. 2002. Wild by Law: A Report Card on Laws Governing Canada’s Parks and ProtectedAreas, and a Blueprint for Making These Laws More Effective. Victoria, B.C.: Faculty of Lawand School of Environmental Studies, University of Victoria.

Buggey, S. 1999. An Approach to Aboriginal Cultural Landscapes. Ottawa: Parks Canada.Burak, P., and G.S. Swinnerton. 1998. An exploratory application of the biosphere reserve con-

cept in the Aspen Parkland of Alberta. In Linking Protected Areas with Working LandscapesConserving Biodiversity: Proceedings of the Third International Conference on Science and theManagement of Protected Areas. N.W.P Munro and J.H.M. Willison, eds. Wolfville, N.S.:Science and Management of Protected Areas Association, 577–583.

Canadian Heritage Rivers System. N.d. Kazan River. On-line at www.chrs.ca/Rivers/Kazan/Kazan_e.htm.

Chape, S., S. Blyth, L. Fish, P. Fox, and M. Spalding, comps. 2003. 2003 United Nations List ofProtected Areas. Gland, Switzerland, and Cambridge, U.K.: IUCN and UNEP WorldConservation Monitoring Centre.

Dearden, P., and R. Rollins, eds. 2002. Parks and Protected Areas in Canada: Planning andManagement. 2nd ed. Don Mills, Ont.: Oxford University Press.

Hanks, C. 1996. Narrative and Landscape: Grizzly Bear Mountain and Scented Grass Hills asRepositories of Sahtu Dene Culture. Ottawa: Parks Canada, Historic Sites and MonumentsBoard of Canada, 1996–61.

Harvaqtuuq Historic Site Committee and Parks Canada. 1997. Fall Caribou Crossing NationalHistoric Site, Conservation and Presentation Report, Including Commemorative IntegrityStatement. Baker Lake, Nunavut, and Ottawa: Harvaqtuuq Historic Site Committee andParks Canada.

IUCN. 1998. 1997 United Nations List of Protected Areas. Cambridge, U.K.: IUCN.Keith, D, 1995. The Fall Caribou Crossing Hunt, Kazan River, Northwest Territories. Ottawa:

Parks Canada, Historic Sites and Monuments Board of Canada, 1995–28.Mitchell, N., and S. Buggey. 2000. Protected landscapes and cultural landscapes: taking advan-

tage of diverse approaches. The George Wright Forum 17:1, 35–46.Munro, N.W.P., and J.H.M. Willison, eds. 1998. Linking Protected Areas with Working

Landscapes Conserving Biodiversity: Proceedings of the Third International Conference onScience and the Management of Protected Areas. Wolfville, N.S.: Science and Management ofProtected Areas Association.

Parks Canada. 2000. Rideau Canal and Merrickville Blockhouse National Historic Sitesof Canada, Commemorative Integrity Statement. Ottawa: Parks Canada.

Québec Ministry of the Environment. 2000. Government Guidelines with a View to Adopting aQuébec Strategy: Protected Areas in Québec—A Pledge for the Future. Québec: QuébecMinistry of the Environment.

Searle, R. 2000. Phantom Parks: The Struggle to Save Canada’s National Parks. Toronto: KeyPorter Books.

Swinnerton, G.S. 1999. Recreation and conservation: Issues and prospects. In Leisure Studies:Prospects for the Twenty-first Century. E.L. Jackson and T.L. Burton, eds. State College,Penna.: Venture Publishing, 199–231.


———. 2001. Protected landscapes in Canada: an examination of the use of IUCN managementcategory V. Poster session presented at the George Wright Society biennial conference,Denver, Colorado.

Turner, A.M., E.B. Wiken, and N. Lopoukhine. 1999. Reporting and indicators for protectedareas and ecosystems: a national perspective. The George Wright Forum 16:2, 37–51.

UNESCO [United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization]. 1999.Operational Guidelines for the Implementation of the World Heritage Convention. Paris:UNESCO.

Guy S. Swinnerton, Faculty of Physical Education and Recreation, Van VlietCentre, University of Alberta, Edmonton, Alberta T6G 2H9, Canada;[email protected]

Susan Buggey, School of Landscape Architecture, Université de Montréal, C.P.6128, succursale Centre-Ville, Montréal, Québec H3C 3J7, Canada;[email protected]

1

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