Browsing by Subject "cultural landscapes"
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Item Heritage Species for Historic Preservation(2023-05) Cohan, Elizabeth; Lytle, Melanie; Gonzales, Jackie; Lookingbill, Todd; MA in Historic PreservationThe United States has no standardized concept to recognize nonhuman species of cultural significance. This thesis argues that the field of historic preservation should play a role in cultural species documentation to fill this gap. To achieve this, preservation practice must expand the documentation process to include culturally significant nonhuman species to fully understand the complex historical relationship between species, people, and places and manage cultural landscapes holistically as dynamic systems. This thesis provides an overview of policy and practice, explains cultural landscape documentation and programs, discusses a brief legislative and regulatory history of the nature-culture divide, and provides examples of how nonhuman species are typically captured through current documentation methods, focusing on the National Park Service’s (NPS) National Register of Historic Places (National Register), Cultural Landscape Inventories (CLI), and Cultural Landscape Reports (CLR). I introduce a new concept to identify culturally significant nonhuman species: heritage species. The heritage species definition and criteria are grounded in existing frameworks such as ethnobiology’s Cultural Keystone Species (CKS) and World Heritage Species. I apply the proposed heritage species concept and evaluate example heritage species, including Mexican free-tailed bats along Congress Avenue Bridge in Austin, Texas and old-growth trees within Glencarlyn Park in Arlington, Virginia, against the National Register. This study finds that heritage species can fit into existing documentation methods within our preservation framework and presents a set of five actionable options geared toward historic preservation professionals which act as possible steps forward to integrate heritage species into documentation. Out of these proposed actionable options, this study suggests preservation professionals document heritage species and their habitat, heritage species habitat, when appropriate rather than the living species itself; this approach fits more easily into the existing place-based framework. Beyond proposed actionable options, additional recommendations to update preservation practice include updates to the current cultural landscape guidance published by the NPS. The proposed heritage species concept is intended to serve as a catalyst for preservationists to update preservation practice from a peoples-first to a living-species-first approach. This paradigm shift has many implications for communities and resource managers regarding the Section 106 process and integrated resource management. This study aims to initiate conversations about integrating species, people, and places within historic preservation theory and practice to reconcile how to preserve living landscapes.Item Sustainable Farms: The Role of Historic Preservation on Working Farms(2019-05) Weir, David; Schiszik, Lauren; Orthel, Bryan; Barrett, Brenda; MA in Historic PreservationThis thesis was designed to better understand how historic preservation engages with farms and how this can be improved. Historic preservation as practiced in the United States does not engage well with working landscapes. Farms embody both historical context as well as representing a living community. For this reason, they are not strictly a thing to be preserved from the past but also a continuation of historic practices. This is best represented by seeing farms as Traditional Cultural Properties instead of Cultural Landscapes. Due to the complexity of farms--their working nature and need to change and adapt--historic preservation practice needs to adapt and be more dynamic if it is to engage with these spaces. This thesis proposes using values-based lens and recognizing that farms are a part of an ecosystem, not the whole context. Using the Chesapeake Bay watershed as a resource highlights the relationship between farms and another at risk landscape. There is a need for farms to be sustainable and the integrated landscape approach and using the traditional cultural property lens are two important adaptations to historic preservation thinking. Without these adaptations to practice, it will be difficult for historic preservation to aid in the future sustainability of farms. Thinking of farm preservation as a wicked problem helps one to understand the complexity of successful preservation. Historic preservation is tasked with preserving elements from the past for the future. Recognizing that farms are more than a collection of buildings and walls and that it is the continued practice that makes the space important involves different approaches. This is very different work from the preservation of the farm architecture. The practices of the farm give value to the land and vice-a-versa. Allowing, and encouraging, farms to change is integral to their survival and sustainability and therefore their long-term preservation.