Incorporating Movements for Racial Justice into Planning and Management of U.S. National Parks

The National Park Service (NPS) is the federal land management agency responsible for 423 units across the United States. Many of these parks are considered iconic cultural and environmental landscapes. However, scholarship from a number of disciplinary approaches has positioned the national parks and their management as problematic, particularly from Indigenous and racial justice concerns. National parks, like many cultural landscapes in the U.S., are infused with racial relations, with unpleasant histories and contemporary experiences that have both subtle instances of marginalization and explicit episodes of material violence. Recent developments in racial justice movements raise fundamental questions for the social and political maintenance, stewardship, and sustainability of the NPS. In a critical approach that centers whiteness as a lens of institutional critique, we consider the ways that the NPS could more critically engage with racial justice approaches in its planning and management. After acknowledging that histories of U.S. national parks as spaces designed for White, upper class people led to the displacement and marginalization of Indigenous and people of color, we look to contemporary avenues for increased racial justice. Through both local, small-scale initiatives and agency-wide, national policies, we consider how racial justice movements are both expectant and galvanized in this moment, providing a setting for the NPS to redress and make amends for previous harms and missed opportunities. Specifically, we identify recent federal and institutional policy and legislation as promising mandates for progress. We identify specific place-based tactics used by individual NPS units, such as renaming parks and geographic features, or interpretation that is both more accurate and more inclusive of marginalized populations. Our research examines planning and management as potential strategic practices that can more fully highlight and progress racial justice. We offer a range of specific questions that might guide more inclusive planning and management work in the NPS. Finally, we encourage the NPS, as an institution, as well as individual park units, to support contemporary racial justice movements, while simultaneously adhering to the agency’s historical dual mandate.

Landscape footprints of peopling and colonisation from the Late Bronze Age to Antiquity in the coastal hinterland of Emporion-Emporiae, NE Iberia

The Empordà plain attests to a remarkable mixture of Late-Holocene cultural exchanges and colonial processes. This includes the founding of Emporion, the earliest Greek colony in Iberia, and of the Roman city of Emporiae. This study aims at assessing landscape changes related to indigenous and colonial settlement in this unique scenario where the shaping of cultural landscapes occurred within a dynamic coastal ecosystem. We carried out a high-temporal resolution palaeoenvironmental study in Els Estanys, a palaeowetland located in the vicinity of Emporion-Emporiae. Palynological, sedimentological and geochemical indicators were coupled with available archaeological and archaeobotanical data-sets. Between 1100 and 800 cal BC, the settling of Urnfield Late Bronze societies resulted in the sustained clearance of woodlands and moderate agropastoral exploitation of coastal ranges. During this period, marine-influenced lagoonal areas were poorly exploited. During the Iron Age (800–450 cal BC), a threshold in the landscape construction of the area occurred with the first pastoral exploitation of lagoonal areas, intensified cereal cultivation, controlled burning, and enhanced deforestation following the settlement of Iberian groups. Greek colonisation (580–200 cal BC), did not trigger intensified farming exploitation or landscape clearance, nor did it imply the introduction of new land uses or crops in the hinterland. Exploitation of the latter continued relying on cereal cultivation and grazing, as before, suggesting the permanence of indigenous landscapes and practices in the hinterland. To the contrary, urban and periurban landscapes played a significant role in the construction of the colonial landscape with the introduction of olive groves likely as ornamental trees. Roman conquest and colonisation of the area constituted a new threshold in the occupation and management of the hinterland with (1) intensified rural settlement; (2) expansion of wet pastures and removal of littoral woodlands; (3) development of diversified cropping activities; and (4) development of mining and smelting activities.

Główne kierunki oraz historyczne i krajobrazowe uwarunkowania przemian pokrycia terenu okolic Pińczowa w latach 1839–2000

The transformations of cultural landscapes are related to and result from environmental conditions and human impacts. The article describes the main directions of land cover changes in the vicinity of Pińczów in the years 1839–2000. The identified land use patterns were shown and discussed against the background of natural landscape characteristics, and anthropogenic influences associated with socio-political and economic situation of the region in the analyzed period.

Cultural Landscapes Preservation at the Interface of Urban Planning and Sprawl

From ancient times, the sea has played a key role in shaping and generating settlements and cities. The history of civilizations has been marked by the cultural development of human societies along coastlines. Accordingly, these territories are harbor of an important coastal heritage; that plays a pivotal role in maintaining the link between the past and the future. In fact, while cities grow and their populations increase, their planning becomes a challenge for sustainable development. Through different forms and mechanisms, coastal sprawl is materialized, by the massive occupation of populations and industrial activities along coastlines. In this vein, coastlines endure many conflicts, which lead to the degradation of cultural and natural resources and may result in loss of cultural identity associated with the presence of cultural landscapes. The paper aims, to discuss planning approaches and challenges related to managing cultural and coastal landscapes, facing the impact of coastal sprawl. The paper is based on a landscape analysis; it interviews the urban, social, juridical and morphological frame. An understanding of urban sprawl through the lens of Annaba’s coastline is required for its implication as a social support of the identity and the history of the city. The paper also examines how the coastalization affects the cultural heritage based on the monograph of one of the valuable French colonial constructions in Algeria. Lastly, the study demonstrates, some key opportunities for advancing future adjustments, and coastal management approaches. For instance, new tools and more appropriate methodologies that combine the preservation of the coastline and the preservation of the cultural heritage.

Cultural landscape management through the application of environmental certifications

Environmental certifications are a tool that aims to measure and evaluate the environmental quality of buildings and their surroundings, with potential collaboration in urban planning. Among the various cultural landscapes that constitute the cities, the historical landscapes can report unique images of urban places, acting as testimonies of the past, which establish connections with the present and serve as reference for the construction of the future. Thus, the need to work the heritage field in sustainable urban management policies is demonstrated. Based on analytical research in the fields of environmental certification and cultural landscape, and documentary research on the Urban-Landscape Set on Avenida Köeler, in the Historic Center of Petrópolis/RJ, the possibility of certifying the set through AQUA/HQE - Neighborhoods was assessed. The aim of this study is to investigate the potential of the environmental certification instrument with regard to the maintenance of historical and cultural values ​​and to the physical conservation of this complex. In addition to meeting the objectives and indicators, the opportunity to establish an urban management program to achieve with excellence the performance of high environmental quality is evident. This study also shows that when analyzing the certification guidelines, as far as the cultural dimension is concerned, a review is needed to better cover the heritage issue, to establish specific guidelines for the conservation of existing landscapes as an incentive to the preservation and promotion of urban quality for current and future generations.

EXPLORING CULTURAL LANDSCAPES OF KAZAKHSTAN IN A SEMIOTIC WAY

The article considers the project “Tugan Zher” (“Homeland”) of the Kazakhstani national program “Course towards the future: modernization of Kazakhstan’s identity” and the possibility to resort to the works and ideas of the well-known Italian philosopher and semiotician, recognized expert in Middle ages Umberto Eco while implementing the program, as in his numerous works the Italian scientist reflects much on the meaning of such notions like signification, reconstruction and memory. His philosophy of culture is the study of signs and languages and belief that understanding of the world requests understanding how we interpret it through the language and signs we use, constant mediation that stands in the way between us and the world. The poetics of openness, advocated much by Eco, is especially actual under the current realities. The present research proves the semiotic concept of U. Eco to be effective in exploring cultural landscapes, which being regarded as signs, carriers of some valuable information, add much to the spiritual legacy of the nation.