FORU THE GEORGEM WRIGHT · • The Antiquities Act: A Century of American Archaeology, Historic...

THE GEORGE W R I G H T

FORUM volume 23 number 1 * 2006

The ICOMOS-Ename Charter for Cultural Heritage Interpretation

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 encourages public policies that embrace these values.

Our Goa l

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

DwiGHT T. PlTCMTHLEY, President • Las Cruces, New Mexico

ABIGAIL B. MILLER, Vice President • Shelhurne, Vermont

JERRY EMORY, Treasurer • Mill Valley, California

GILLIAN BOWSER, Secretary • Bryan, Texas

REBECCA CONARD • Murfreesboro, Tennessee

ROLF DiAMANT • Woodstock, Vermont

SUZANNE LEWIS • Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming

DAVID J. PARSONS • Florence, Montana

STEPHANIE TOOTHMAN • Seattle, Washington

WILLIAM H. WALKER,JR. • Herndon, Virginia

STEPHEN WOODLEY • Chelsea, Quebec

Executive Office

DAVID HARMON, Executive Director

EMILY DEKKER-FIALA, Conference Coordinator

P. O. Box 65 • Hancock, Michigan 49930-0065 USA 1-906-487-9722 • fax 1-906-487-9405 [email protected] • www.georgewright.org

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

© 2006 The George Wright Society, Inc. All rights reserved. (No copyright is claimed for previously published material reprinted herein.)

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THE GEORGE WRIGHT

FORUM volume 23 number 1 • 2006

Society News, Notes & Mail • 2

The Antiquities Act: The First Hundred Years of a Landmark Law

David Harmon, Francis P. McManamon, and Dwight T. Pitcaithley • 5

The ICOMOS-Ename Charter: New Principles for Interpreting Cultural Heritage Sites

The ICOMOS-Ename Charter Initiative:

Rethinking the Role of Heritage Interpretation in the 21st Century

Neil Silbcrman • 28

Text of the ICOMOS-Ename Charter for the Interpretation of Cultural Heritage Sites • 34

Some Background Musings on the Need for an ICOMOS-Ename Charter

for the Interpretation of Cultural Heritage Sites Gustavo Aram • 40

Economics and Authenticity:

A Collision of Interpretations in Cane River National Heritage Area, Louisiana

David W. Morgan, Kevin C. MacDonald, and Fiona J. L. Handley • 44

Application of an Issue Evolution Model to Wildlife Issues in National Parks

Kirsten M. Leong, Daniel J. Decker, Margaret A. Wild, and John Karish • 62

Adaptive Management of National Park Ecosystems

TonyPrato • 72

Partners in Parks: 1988-2006

Sarah G. Bishop • 87

On the cover: Africa House and Main House Mural, painted by Clementine Hunter on the wall

of Africa House, Melrose Plantation, Louisiana. See article by Morgan et al. starting on p. 44.

Photograph reproduced with permission of the Cane River National Heritage Area.

SOCIETY NEWS, NOTES & MAIL GWS comments on proposed new NPS management policies

As many GWS members are aware, last summer the Department of the Interior began a

process to revise the National Park Service Management Policies, the current edition of

which dates from 2001. The proposed revisions are extensive, and have been quite contro

versial. At its meeting in November the Society's Board of Directors decided that the GWS

needed to weigh in with comments on the proposed revisions. In accordance with the GWS

mission, our goal was to provide a nonpartisan, professional, park-resource-focused review

of the proposed revisions. The executive office drafted the comments, which were then

reviewed, edited, and approved by the Board. We submitted our comments to the National

Park Service in early February.

Because of the importance of the Management Policies, and the gravity of the proposed

revisions, we undertook an exhaustive critical analysis. The result is a comments document

that runs to more than 40 pages. It begins with an explanation of the GWS position on

resource protection and preservation in the U.S. national parks, and continues with specific

comments, keyed to line and page number. The document ends with the following

Conclusion and Recommendations:

In summary, there is no doubt that Congress' intent in establishing the National Park Service, individual park units, and the overall national park system has always been that resource preservation and protection is paramount and that any uses allowed in the parks must never under any circumstances jeopardize the enduring resource values that are the very basis for America's national park idea. We feel safe in asserting that a large majority of the American people have always endorsed, and continue to endorse, this vision of the national parks. Any revision of the NPS Management Policies, now and in the future, must be based on this foundational commitment to resource protection and preservation. Dozens of the proposed revisions to the 2001 Management Policies unnecessarily obscure, and not infrequently violate, this commitment. There are a number of good things in the 2006 revisions, but they are far outweighed by revisions that are detrimental to proper management of the parks. The 2006 proposed revisions consistently change wording so as to emphasize the permissibility of park uses rather than the protection and preservation of resources and resource values. The unmistakable impression is that the 2006 revisions are a systematic attempt to weaken the 2001 Policies.

We are also concerned that the process of revising the policies was based on a presumption, unsupported by consultation with Congress and the public, that changes to the 2001 Policies needed to be made. Rightly or wrongly, this calls into question the legitimacy of the revisions because of the perception that the public was left out of the process at the beginning.

We therefore recommend that the Department of the Interior and the National Park Service discard the current proposed revisions and begin the process afresh by holding a national public scoping process to determine, in the first place, whether revisions to the 2001 Management Policies are truly necessary after only five years. If such a scoping process determines that major changes in circumstances (e.g., post-9/11 national security concerns)

2 The George Wright Forum

warrant a new edition, then collectively we will be starting the revision process from a much firmer and more transparent position. We will be better able to determine exactly what needs to be added to or altered in the 2001 policies to address these changed circumstances and whether, in addition to that, the language of core sections of the policies needs to be sharpened to bring the protection and preservation mission of NPS into perfectly clear focus. As noted throughout this document, the GWS supports revisions to the NPS Management Policies that consistently and unequivocally endorse this fundamental mission.

We urge all GWS members with an interest in the National Park Service to look at this impor

tant document. You can view or download the GWS comments at:

http://www.georgewright.org/nps_mp_comineiits.pdf

The GWS comments are keyed to the line and page numbers of the following document,

which is a comparison of the 2001 Management Policies and the proposed 2006 revisions,

showing all the proposed changes: http://www.nps.gov/policy/mp/comparison.pdf. While

the public comment period is now over, in response to the comments received (reportedly in

the tens of thousands) the Park Service has announced it will undertake another round of

revisions to the policies. It remains to be seen whether this will satisfy the many critics of the

process—including some in Congress, from both sides of the aisle—who have called for the

rewrite to be abandoned.

2006 GWS Board election: Two seats open Nominations are now being accepted for the 2006 election for the Society's Board of

Directors. Board members David Parsons and Dwight Pitcaithley are both reaching the end

of their second and final term, and so their two seats will be up for election. We are now

accepting nominations from GWS members who would like to be candidates. The term of

office runs from January 1, 2007, through December 31 , 2009. Nominations are open

through July 1,2006. To be eligible, both the nominator and the potential candidate must be

GWS members in good standing (it's permissible to nominate one's self). The potential can

didates must be willing to travel to in-person Board meetings, which usually occur once a

year; take part in Board conference calls, which occur several times per year; help prepare for

and carry out the biennial conferences; and serve on Board committees and do other work

associated with the Society. Travel costs and per diem for Board meetings are paid for by the

Society; otherwise there is no remuneration. Federal government employees who wish to

serve on the Board must be prepared to comply with all applicable ethics requirements and

laws; this may include, for example, obtaining permission from one's supervisor, receiving

ethics-related training, and/or obtaining a conflict of interest waiver. The Society can provide

prospective candidates with a summary of the requirements.

The nomination procedure is as follows: members nominate candidates for possible

inclusion on the ballot by sending the candidate's name to the Board's nominating commit

tee. The committee then, in its discretion, determines the composition of the ballot from the

field of potential candidates. Among the criteria the nominating committee considers when

determining which potential candidates to include on the ballot are his/her skills and expe

rience (and how those might complement the skills and experience of current Board mem-

Volume 23 • Number 1 (2006) 3

http://www.georgewright.org/nps_mp_comineiits.pdf

http://www.nps.gov/policy/mp/comparison.pdf

bers), the goal of adding and/or maintaining diverse viewpoints on the Board, and the goal

of maintaining a balance between natural- and cultural-resource perspectives on the Board.

(It also is possible for members to place candidates directly on the ballot through petition;

for details, contact the GWS office.) To propose someone for possible candidacy, send his oi

lier name and complete contact details to: Nominating Committee, The George Wright

Society, P.O. Box 65, Hancock, MI 49930-0065 USA, or via email to info@george-

wright.org. All potential candidates will be contacted by the nominating committee to get

background information before the final ballot is determined. Again, the deadline for nomi

nations is July 1, 2006.

New books

• Three Rivers: The Yukon's Great Boreal Wilderness. This coffee-table book, edited

by Juri Peepre and Sarah Locke, is an anthology of photography, art, essays, stories, and

poetry celebrating the Three Rivers wilderness and calling for protection of all three

watersheds (the Wind, Snake, and Bonnet Plume). Contributions from such notables as

Margaret Atwood and John Ralston Saul are supplemented by work from participants

in a canoe journey through the wilderness that formed part of the conservation cam

paign to save the area. A co-publication of the Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society

and Harbour Publishing. Ordering information from www.cpawsyukon.org.

• The Antiquities Act: A Century of American Archaeology, Historic Preservation, and Nature Conservation. This volume marking the 2006 centennial of the law was

co-edited by GWSers Dave Harmon, Frank McManamon, and Dwight Pitcaithley.

Seventeen chapters cover the often-controversial history and achievements of this versa

tile and important law, which forms the foundation for American cultural-resource law,

as well as being the basis for the creation of dozens of important natural-area national

monuments. Ordering information from the University of Arizona Press at

www.uapress.arizona.edu. (For more, see the article adapted from the book starting on

the next page.)

The George Wright Forum 4



http://www.cpawsyukon.org

http://www.uapress.arizona.edu


The Antiquities Act:The First Hundred Years of a Landmark Law

David Harmon, Francis P. McManamon, and Dwight T. Pitcaithley

Adapted from The Antiquities Act: A Century of American Archaeology, Historic Preserva-tion, and Nature Conservation, David Harmon, Francis P. McManamon, and Dwight T.Pitcaithley, editors. © 2006 The Arizona Board of Regents. Reprinted by permission of theUniversity of Arizona Press.

THE HISTORY OF AMERICAN ARCHAEOLOGY, CONSERVATION, AND HISTORIC PRESERVATION

often is told in terms of legal milestones, and rightly so. An environmental activist working toexpand a nearby park, a historic preservationist trying to save a cherished old building, a vol-unteer working on a national wilderness campaign, an archaeologist investigating an ancientvillage site in advance of reservoir construction—all are working from a solid foundation ofstatutory authorities that, law by law, have expanded protections for archaeologicalresources, historic structures, and natural areas. There are many laws that mark critical junc-tures in our national conservation policy, yet what is arguably one of the most important ofthem all remains little known outside of specialist circles. That law is the Antiquities Act of1906.

No other law has had such a wide-ranging influence on the preservation of our nation’scultural and natural heritage. Why is the Antiquities Act so important?

Creation of national monuments.The Act gives the president the power toestablish specially protected national mon-uments from tracts of existing federal publicland. These monuments range from prehis-toric ruins and other objects of antiquity(hence the Act’s name) all the way up toentire landscapes of ecological and scientif-ic importance, covering thousands or evenmillions of acres. With President Bush’sproclamation of African Burial Ground Na-tional Monument in February 2006, the Acthas now been used by 15 presidents to pro-claim new national monuments or expandexisting ones.1 These monuments, whichcover over 79,700,000 acres, includeworld-class protected natural areas, many of

which have gone on to receive national parkstatus, and cultural sites of internationalrenown. Of America’s twenty World Heri-tage sites, seven originated as national mon-uments under the Antiquities Act: CarlsbadCaverns National Park, Chaco Culture Na-tional Historical Park, Grand Canyon Na-tional Park, Olympic National Park, Statueof Liberty National Monument, Glacier BayNational Park and Preserve, and Wrangell–St. Elias National Park and Preserve.2 Of thenational park system’s 390 units, almostone-fourth (88; 22.5%) had their origins asnational monuments proclaimed under theAntiquities Act, and the law was used togreatly extend several other park units. Inaddition, there are now 18 national monu-

ments managed solely by agencies otherthan the National Park Service, such as theBureau of Land Management, U.S. ForestService, and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

Establishing the primacy of com-memorative, educational, and scientificvalues for archaeological resources. Sec-tion 3 of the Act establishes the regulationof archaeological investigations on publiclands and states that such investigations are“for increasing the knowledge of [archaeo-

logical sites and] … objects, and … for per-manent preservation in public museums.”In one long sentence, the second half of thissection makes clear that archaeological sitesand the items removed from them are mostimportant for what we can learn from themwith proper study. The objective of archae-ological investigations is to study the pastthrough historical and scientific methods,not to retrieve objects for display, exhibit, orsale.3

A foundation for heritage profession-alism. The Act provides a legal and publicpolicy foundation for public archaeology inthe United States, and for public agenciesbeing involved in the preservation of his-toric places and structures. Its provisions

have done much to foster the developmentof the professions of archaeology, history,and historic preservation in the public sec-tor in this country, and has had an impor-tant influence on anthropology and paleon-tology as well.4

A scientific basis for nature preserva-tion. The Act was the first law to systemat-ically enable the creation of large-scalenature reserves for scientific (rather thanscenic or economic) reasons.5 Not only didit therefore prefigure today’s emphasis onlandscape-scale ecosystem conservation bynearly a century, it remains a vital tool forsuch efforts. In fact, over the past 30 yearspractically the only big nature reserves cre-ated by the federal government have comeas the result of monument declarationsunder the Antiquities Act.

An important presidential preroga-tive. The Act established the power of thepresident to proactively preserve importantcultural sites and natural areas (up to andincluding large landscapes of ecologicalvalue) that are threatened with degradationor outright destruction. This “one-way”power—the president can unilaterally estab-lish national monuments, but only an act ofCongress can abolish them—is an impor-tant legal doctrine that established, and hasenhanced, the leadership of the executivebranch in archaeology, historic preserva-tion, and nature conservation.

Simply put: In shaping public policy toprotect a broad array of cultural and naturalresources, the impact of the Antiquities Actis unsurpassed, extending far beyond whatis suggested by its quaint title. In truth, thename of the Act is downright misleading—or at least seriously deficient, because thenational monument-making provision ofthe law has been used to protect vast naturalareas in addition to the kind of well-defined

The George Wright Forum6

Vermillion Cliffs National Monument, Arizona. Photo courtesyof the Bureau of Land Management.

archaeological sites that the word “antiqui-ties” connotes. This is the controversy thathas swirled around the Act throughout itshistory: whether the scope of discretionarymonument proclamations as exercised byvarious presidents has far exceeded whatwas intended by Congress.

The heart of the controversy is aninnocuous clause at the beginning of Sec-tion 2 of the Act (see text box). Here, thepresident is authorized to “declare by pub-lic proclamation historic landmarks, his-toric and prehistoric structures, and otherobjects of historic or scientific interest thatare situated upon the lands owned or con-trolled by the Government of the UnitedStates to be national monuments, and mayreserve as a part thereof parcels of land, thelimits of which in all cases shall be confinedto the smallest area compatible with propercare and management of the objects to beprotected....” The key phrases, with empha-sis added, are “objects of historic and scien-tific interest” and “confined to the smallestarea compatible with proper care and man-

agement.” One reasonable interpretation ofthese phrases would be that the Act appliesonly to very specific natural features—arock formation, say—and that the bound-aries of the monument being created shouldextend very little beyond the feature itself.Another interpretation, which critics of theAct have found highly unreasonable, is thatan object of scientific interest can be some-thing as vast as the Grand Canyon, and thesmallest area compatible with protectionand management can be millions of acres inextent. Yet it is this second, expansionistinterpretation that has been adopted by anumber of presidents, Republican andDemocrat alike, over the past century.

The precedent began with the manwho signed “An Act for the Preservation ofAmerican Antiquities” into law on June 8,1906: the larger-than-life Theodore Rex, asone of his recent biographers has calledhim. Congress was well aware of the charac-ter of the president into whose hands it wasdelivering the law, of his sovereign vision ofpower and his willingness to wield it. And,


The original of the Antiquities Act, as signed by Theodore Roosevelt on June 8, 1906, and filed the next day. Images courtesy ofthe NPS Historic Photo Archive.


characteristically, Theodore Rooseveltwasted very little time before making use ofthe Act. On September 24, 1906, he pro-claimed the first national monument: theimposing monolith of Devils Tower inWyoming. Before he left office in 1909,Roosevelt declared seventeen more, andtherein lies the beginning of our story. Many

of them, like Devils Tower, encompassedrelatively small areas. But several, such asGrand Canyon and Mount Olympus, wereRooseveltian in scope. TR’s dynamic use ofthe Act set off reverberations that are stillbeing felt today. It was as if he emboldenedhis successors to dare to match the spirit, ifnot the sheer volume, of his example.

An Act for the Preservation of American Antiquities

Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America inCongress assembled, That any person who shall appropriate, excavate, injure, or destroyany historic or prehistoric ruin or monument, or any object of antiquity, situated on landsowned or controlled by the Government of the United States, without the permission ofthe Secretary of the Department of the Government having jurisdiction over the lands onwhich said antiquities are situated, shall, upon conviction, be fined in a sum of not morethan five hundred dollars or be imprisoned for a period of not more than ninety days, orshall suffer both fine and imprisonment, in the discretion of the court.

Sec. 2. That the President of the United States is hereby authorized, in his discretion, todeclare by public proclamation historic landmarks, historic and prehistoric structures,and other objects of historic or scientific interest that are situated upon the lands ownedor controlled by the Government of the United States to be national monuments, and mayreserve as a part thereof parcels of land, the limits of which in all cases shall be confinedto the smallest area compatible with proper care and management of the objects to beprotected: Provided, That when such objects are situated upon a tract covered by a bonafide unperfected claim or held in private ownership, the tract, or so much thereof as maybe necessary for the proper care and management of the object, may be relinquished tothe Government, and the Secretary of the Interior is hereby authorized to accept the relin-quishment of such tracts in behalf of the Government of the United States.

Sec. 3. That permits for the examination of ruins, the excavation of archaeological sites,and the gathering of objects of antiquity upon the lands under their respective jurisdic-tions may be granted by the Secretaries of the Interior, Agriculture, and War to institu-tions which they may deem properly qualified to conduct such examination, excavation,or gathering, subject to such rules and regulation as they may prescribe: Provided, Thatthe examinations, excavations, and gatherings are undertaken for the benefit of reputablemuseums, universities, colleges, or other recognized scientific or educational institutions,with a view to increasing the knowledge of such objects, and that the gatherings shall bemade for permanent preservation in public museums.

Sec. 4. That the Secretaries of the Departments aforesaid shall make and publish fromtime to time uniform rules and regulations for the purpose of carrying out the provisionsof this Act.

Approved, June 8, 1906

This year marks the hundredth anni-versary of the Act. The centennial affordsan unparalleled opportunity for present-daystewards to reflect on its historic achieve-ments, revisit its controversies, critique itsshortcomings, remind fellow professionalsand the general public of its continuingimportance, and look ahead to its future inthe 21st century. We have tried to do that inour forthcoming book, titled The Antiqui-ties Act: A Century of American Archaeology,Historic Preservation, and Nature Conser-vation. The rest of this paper, which is anadaptation of our summary chapter, out-lines what we and our contributing authorshave found out about this remarkable pieceof legislation.

IN MANY WAYS, THE CENTRAL STORY OF THE

Antiquities Act revolves around intentions.What did the architects of the Act intend? Aseries of tiny sites protecting well-definedarcheological and natural curiosities, cover-ing the smallest possible area? Or did theytruly mean to give the president more lee-way? If they did mean to do that, have sub-sequent presidents stretched the originalintent beyond all reasonable recognition?And how does one explain the fact thatpresidents as different as the imperialTheodore Roosevelt and the reticent CalvinCoolidge have nevertheless used the Act toremarkably similar ends? In the years sinceits passage, the federal courts have found inthe language of the Act sufficient justifica-tion for the broader, Rooseveltian interpre-tation. Moreover, the range of opinionsexpressed by proponents of one or anotherversion of the legislation put forwardbetween 1900 and 1906 included broad aswell as narrow perspectives. These ques-tions are what make the history of the Anti-quities Act so fascinating.

To answer those questions, one mustfirst understand where the law came fromand why it took the form that it did. TheAntiquities Act is very much a product of itstime, the direct result of two streams ofangst whose headwaters are to be found inthe specific conditions that prevailed at thatparticular moment in history. As the nine-teenth century wound down, civic-mindedelites woke up to the disturbing fact thatAmerica was finite. The image of the end-lessly expanding, always beckoning frontier,so important to the doctrine of Euro-american expansionism, had been abruptlyerased by the historian Frederick JacksonTurner in his famous 1893 paper “TheSignificance of the Frontier in AmericanHistory.” Turner’s decisive pronouncementthat the American frontier was now closedunderscored what had become apparent tomany during the previous decade—that thegreat open landscapes of the West were fill-ing up with settlers or increasingly comingunder the control of land speculators. Thecritical mythic spaces occupying the veryheart of the national unification story wererapidly being piecemealed into a motleyassortment of private uses.

Congress already had preserved sever-al outstanding examples of the Americanlandscape and cultural heritage by creatingnational parks or reservations at Yellow-stone, Mackinac Island (later transferred tothe control of the state of Michigan), CasaGrande Ruin (between Tucson and Phoe-nix in Arizona), Sequoia, General Grant,and Yosemite (the last three all inCalifornia’s Sierra Nevada.6 In this context,handing the president broad power toreserve parts of those landscapes for contin-uing public benefit and edification was anact of nation-building.

At the same time, mounting reports of


settlers, curiosity-seekers, newfangled tour-ists, and profiteers ransacking southwesternarchaeological sites for building materials,curios, or treasures did not comport wellwith the received notion of an Americabased on justice and probity. As Ronald F.Lee noted in his pioneering history of theAct (originally published in 1970 and pre-sented in abridged form in our book),7 theelite opinion leaders were no doubt dis-mayed that the destruction was truly a dem-ocratic activity, carried on by everyone fromilliterate cowboys to some of their rival east-ern establishment institutions and IvyLeague colleagues bending to demands forartifacts to display and exhibit in universi-ties and museums. It made sense for theseinfluential people to support a law wherebythe president could, with a stroke of hispen, put a halt to the unseemly business incertain select places.

Yet all was not straightforward andsimple in finding support for the Antiqui-ties Act. Rising local and regional elites inthe Southwest and West sometimes resent-ed eastern scholars poaching on their arch-aeological sites. Even within the nationalgovernment, the General Land Office of theDepartment of the Interior and the Smith-sonian Institution jousted over whichshould be responsible for archaeologicalsites on public lands.8 The overall objectiveof protecting archaeological sites from loot-ing, and preserving them until they couldbe investigated using the newly emergingscientific methods and techniques of arch-aeology, was agreed to by the Act’s propo-nents. By contrast, who would oversee theprotection, and perhaps more to the point,who would regulate the subsequent investi-gations, was vigorously disputed. Theseconcerns and disputes, of course, fit into thebroad context of American nationalism, the

rise of the Progressive political movement,the emergence of government programs toforce the assimilation of American Indiansinto mainstream society, and parallel effortsto record Native American traditions beforethey disappeared.9

For some, preserving archaeologicalruins10 was a subtle but tangible reminder ofwho the conquerors were, of whose civiliza-tion had “won” the West. Newly anointed,these national monuments spoke to the sup-posed demise of Native American civiliza-tion while at the same time proclaiming thepermanence and benevolence of the poweremanating from Washington.

Many factors contributed to the impe-tus behind the Antiquities Act. The storiedelements of the American nation were bothnatural, in the form of supposedly un-touched wilderness landscapes,11 and cul-tural, in the vestiges of the country’s ancientpast. Char Miller makes the insightful ob-servation that creating national monumentsis a type of civic consecration: “Through asecular legislative act, the nation-state, atDevils Tower and elsewhere, created a newkind of sacred space—national in name,sweep, and scope....”12 It is by these meansthat the Antiquities Act, in subtle butdeeply permeating ways, shored up keyparts of the dominant unifying narrative thefederal government wished to tell.

Understanding this helps to explainthe motivations of the two men mostresponsible for maneuvering the law into itsfinal form: Edgar Lee Hewett and JohnFletcher Lacey. Today, their names are allbut forgotten except by archaeologists andhistorians of conservation, but their relativeobscurity is undeserved. Hewett was anadministrator, author, and educator as wellas a field archaeologist, whose mix of expe-rience and talent enabled him to forge the


compromise that became the final text ofthe Act. Hewett was one of those invaluablebehind-the-scenes brokers without whommost laws would never get through the pro-verbial sausage factory. As told by RaymondHarris Thompson, the story of how Hewettmanaged to get squabbling factions to cometogether behind the language of the Act isone of perseverance mixed with politicaland professional acumen and flexibility.13

At the beginning of the twentieth cen-tury, Hewett was a man determined to makea mark, both scholarly and politically, on thefledgling profession of American archaeolo-gy. He also was a booster of the AmericanSouthwest and West who sought to counterthe cultural and educational dominance ofthe eastern elite with a regional perspective.But what Thompson also brings out in hisprofile is a less obvious point: Hewett’s wasa politics of place, grounded in his love forthe Pajarito Plateau and northern NewMexico, a landscape that combined both ofthe mythic elements described above. AsThompson pinpoints, Hewett was operat-ing on the principle that “the federal gov-ernment has a statutory responsibility forthe archaeological resources on the land itowns or controls.”14 This notion of steward-

ship became the foundation for the profes-sion, the bedrock to which all archaeologyon public lands is anchored.

Although Hewett was personally inter-ested primarily in archaeology, because hehad imbibed the New Mexican landscapehe readily saw the political—and symbol-ic—advantages of including the protectionof “objects of scientific interest” alongsidethat of archaeological sites. The language ofthe Antiquities Act is a hybrid of naturaland cultural concerns not because of inepti-tude, but because of Hewett’s perceptionthat the competing interests among govern-ment agencies and the scientific communitycould be reconciled, along with his politicalskills in executing a compromise. AsThompson describes, Hewett grasped thebasic problem: the rivalry between theDepartment of the Interior, which wanted ameans to create national parks and controlthe protection of archaeological sites onpublic lands, and the Smithsonian Institu-tion, which wanted to control the investiga-tion of archaeological sites. It was he whorecognized that their “dueling bills” strate-gy was going nowhere. Most important ofall, it was he who understood that the twoapproaches could best be reconciled in onepiece of legislation, and that the way to get itpassed was by coming up with carefullyphrased, low-key wording palatable to aCongress that was no doubt weary of thetopic and wished to dispose of it as non-controversially as possible.

Any antiquities bill, no matter howcarefully written, faced a major hurdle in theHouse of Representatives in the form of theCommittee on Public Lands, throughwhom all such legislation had to pass.Because the committee was dominated bymembers from the West who were largelywary of federal power, success for the


Aztec Ruins National Monument, New Mexico. Photo courtesyof the National Park Service.

Antiquities Act depended on the politicalskill of the committee’s chairman, John F.Lacey. Rebecca Conard introduces us tothis Iowa congressman. Lacey was a majorfigure in conservation at the turn of the 20thcentury, but his personal background, asshe tells us, provides few clues as to whatfueled his interest in nature protection.15

Unlike Hewett, Lacey was incapable offalling in love with a landscape. Hisapproach to life was cerebral: when con-fronted with something new, rather thanassimilating it emotionally he focused all hisconcentration on it, framing it as a problemor an issue, studying it until he satisfiedhimself that he owned it. His mind wasessentially acquisitive. And intense: Laceywas a man who, as a soldier, prided himselfon being able to read a dry-as-dust legaltreatise while siege guns roared aroundhim. The picture Conard paints is of a manwho placed a premium on self-mastery. Shewas challenged to be able to paint anythingat all, given the reticence of Lacey’s person-al papers. This reluctance to speak from theheart, even in private letters, only serves toreinforce the image of Lacey as iron-willedand rather ascetic. Then too, he was politi-cally ambitious in ways that Hewett wasnot.

Lacey’s Civil War experience forged inhim a deep sense of duty to country, and itis here that we find the roots of his interestin conservation. Whether it was his supportof the Yellowstone Protection Act and ofPresident Cleveland’s use of the gamereserve act, his own work on the migratorywildlife law that carries his name, or hisushering of the Antiquities Act throughCongress, Lacey was driven by a belief thatgood government—meaning impartial, fac-tually informed government—was neededto keep the appalling extremes of human

behavior in check. The government, inessence, had to step in and impose order onpeople who, unlike himself, were unable tomaster their own worst tendencies.

Once the antiquities bill was passed, ithad to be enacted, and the mantle of leader-ship passed from Hewett and Lacey toTheodore Roosevelt. Like Lacey, TRplaced a high value on self-control anddetermination. Indeed, some of his mostfamous exploits were, in their way, exercisesin will: one thinks of him sojourning in theNorth Dakota badlands in the 1880s, lead-ing the charge up San Juan Hill in 1898, fin-ishing a speech after an assassinationattempt in 1912. Furthermore, as CharMiller highlights, Roosevelt was aProgressive who “believed deeply in thecapacity of government to mold the com-monweal, present and future.”16 He sharedthis Progressive philosophy with bothLacey and Hewett, and it is the commonthread that binds their disparate personali-ties together. Roosevelt, of course, was amuch larger performer performing on amuch larger stage, but the Progressive kin-ship among the three central figures of theAct’s passage—which was endorsed andshared by a majority of Congress and by key


Glacier Bay National Park & Preserve originated as a nation-al monument. Photo courtesy of the National Park Service.

administrators at the Department of theInterior, such as W. A. Richards, commis-sioner of the General Land Office—informed the very nature of the law. Simplyput, at the time of the Act’s passage in June1906 the key people in Washingtonbelieved in the Progressive vision of a tech-nocratically competent, beneficent govern-ment whose expertise would be placed atthe service of (what were assumed to be)common ideals. Under those assumptions,it makes perfect sense to give the presidentbroad power to proclaim national monu-ments. After all, he will be acting on expertrecommendations that, precisely becausethey are expert, must by definition producethe best possible result. That logic carriedthe day. Outside of politicians and commu-nities in the West whose commercial inter-ests were the most likely to be affected bymonument proclamations, few had philo-sophical qualms about it.

This review leads us to the conclusionthat the language of the Antiquities Act wascarefully chosen by ideologically informedmen who were deeply concerned that anold order was passing away and wanted todo something about it. Hewett, Lacey, andothers who contributed to the drafts of billsthat became the final text of the Act had aclear vision about what kind of powershould be vested in the president, and theythought that bestowing such power was agood thing. They shared an understandingof the cultural, educational, and historic val-ues of archaeological, natural, and scientificresources and an agreement that theseshould be publicly protected and their useregulated. Western congressional interestswere in dissent, and that dissent is reflectedin the Act’s language referring to the “small-est area compatible with proper care andmanagement of the objects to be protected.”

But the majority of Congress acceded to theProgressive vision. Had Congress wantedto, it could have endorsed earlier antiquitiesbills that specifically limited monuments toa few hundred acres; it did not. Eventhough Lacey himself promised westernrepresentatives that the Act would not beused to “lock up” large areas, the Houseand Senate knew exactly what sort of a manthey were about to hand over these powersto. Unless they were incredibly naïve theyalso must have known what use he wouldlikely make of them. Roosevelt’s bully-pul-pit track record was there for all to see, aswas his keen interest in conservation. It can-not have come as a shock to any member ofCongress when, in December 1906, TRdeclared the first large natural nationalmonument, Petrified Forest, nor even whenhe outdid that by more than tenfold with an800,000-acre Grand Canyon proclamationsome thirteen months later. Progressivismwas a supremely self-confident ideology,daring to do great things, one that meshedperfectly with TR’s natural bent. It goes along way toward explaining why he had nocompunction in stretching the language ofthe Act to its very limits—and perhapsbeyond.

In summary, the main cultural compo-nents of the Antiquities Act were a broad-based anxiety over the loss of key mythicelements of the putative national narrative,fused with a Progressive conviction in theability of government to identify and main-tain a commonweal. The result was a lawuneasily embedded in a mixture of paradoxand irony. Paradox, because the AntiquitiesAct was seen by its framers as an instrumentto promote a unified citizenry, a cohesivenation-state, even though its methods weresure to alienate people (mostly in the West)whose economic aspirations were curtailed


by new monument proclamations. Irony,because while both the eastern supportersof the Act and the western opponents of itwere conscious of the passing away of adesirable old order, they seemed to beunaware that their visions of this order werenot only very different, but in large partmutually exclusive.

THE WEST’S ALIENATION FROM THE ACT

disposed itself in legal flare-ups over theMount Olympus and Grand Canyon proc-lamations, but the issue really came to ahead in the 1940s when the showdownbetween Franklin D. Roosevelt (actingthrough the Park Service) and Wyomingpoliticians over the creation of JacksonHole National Monument nearly blew apartthe Antiquities Act. Progressivism hadpassed from the scene, driven from the fieldby the disillusionments of World War I andthe Great Depression, but paternalism of adifferent sort was still very much in evi-dence. Looming metaphorically above theTetons was the figure of an actual flesh-and-blood paterfamilias, an ultra-rich eastern-er—and hence an outsider both socioeco-nomically and geographically—who washoarding most of the land down in the val-ley because he was certain its highest andbest use was as part of the national park sys-tem. There can be little doubt that resent-ment of John D. Rockefeller, Jr., played animportant role in Wyoming’s decision tochallenge FDR’s Jackson Hole monumentproclamation: the lawsuit may have beenfiled against the Park Service, but in theminds of many locals the great magnate wasan unindicted co-conspirator. The socialand economic disparities of the two sidesare a virtual subtext to Hal Rothman’saccount of the controversy. In his summing-up, Rothman gets right to the heart of the

matter: this was an early battle between theOld West of resource extraction and theNew West of services and tourism.17

In seeking the Rockefeller lands for thenew monument, the Park Service was look-ing to garner a complete range of life zonesfrom the high peaks of the Grand Tetonsdown to and across the valley floor—a val-ley which included much valuable ranch-land. That was the crux of the issue.Although Wyoming argued that its sover-eignty had been traduced and the ParkService had not properly identified scientif-ic or historic objects that would justify themonument, the real reason for the outcrywas that tax revenues, grazing fees, andpotentially developable land would be lost.However, these objections would not (and

probably could not) be adjudicated. ThePark Service mounted a typical legaldefense, first trying to get the suit summari-ly dismissed on procedural grounds andthen, after that failed, enlisting expert wit-nesses to testify at trial to the monument’secological and historic importance. Thetrial judge, as so often happens, ended updismissing the lawsuit for technical reasonsand did not even rule on the merits of the


Jackson Hole as it appeared in 1933, with the valley landsthat would be at the heart of the 1940s controversy in theforeground. George Alexander Grant photograph, courtesy ofNational Park Service Historic Photo Collection.

proclamation. In terms of clarifying the lim-its of presidential authority under the Act,the lawsuit accomplished nothing, thoughsome years later it did induce the govern-ment to negotiate away the president’sauthority to use the Act in Wyoming as away to get the delegation’s support forincorporating most of Jackson Hole Na-tional Monument into Grand Teton Nation-al Park.

Had the presidential powers under theAct been emasculated at that time, as manylocals in and around Jackson Hole ferventlywished, the most serious repercussionswould have been felt two generations laterin, of all places, Alaska. That is because in1978 President Jimmy Carter used theAntiquities Act to preserve tens of millionsof acres of the state as national monuments,forestalling the transfer of what was thenunassigned national-interest public domain(the so-called (d)(2) lands) to non-conser-vation status. The story is told by one of theprotagonists, Carter’s secretary of the interi-or, Cecil D. Andrus, along with his col-league at the Andrus Center for Public Pol-icy, John C. Freemuth. They give us aninsider’s view of what has been called thegreatest single act of land preservation inAmerican history.18

The unique circumstances surround-ing the disposition of Alaska’s publicdomain, which had been slowly buildingsince statehood in 1958, reached a crisisstage by the late 1970s, and the problem ofwhat to do landed on the desk of Andrus.He was absolutely convinced then thatusing the Antiquities Act to secure protec-tion of the so-called (d)(2) lands was rightand necessary, and he and Freemuth remainconvinced now. While Andrus and the restof the Carter administration faced a definiteprecipice in the form of a pending expira-

tion of the (d)(2) moratorium, their re-sponse was anything but precipitate. Car-ter’s proclamations of December 1, 1978—arguably the most decisive and far-reachingsingle act of conservation in American his-tory—were preceded by years of researchand analysis, as well as extensive negotia-tions through various congressional chan-nels. Alternatives to the use of the Antiqui-ties Act, such as withdrawals under theFederal Land Policy and Management Act(FLPMA), were considered. Finally, when itlooked as though the whole process wasabout to go over the cliff, Andrus advisedCarter to act.

Yet both men knew that the proclama-tions were not the end of the story. Theyrecognized that Antiquities Act designa-tions were too inflexible to allow for the“subtle shades of management regimes”that would be desirable in Alaska. Althoughthe Carter proclamations were vilified bycritics as cramming a one-size-fits-all feder-alism down the throats of Alaskans, in truththey were a conscious tactic to get dead-locked negotiations into an end game byremoving any further incentives to stall.They produced exactly this effect, and intwo years almost all the newly created


Lake Clark National Park originated as a national monument.Photo courtesy of the National Park Service.

national monuments were redeployed intoother designations. Many went into a newstatus of “national park and preserve” inwhich the national park portion is open totraditional subsistence activities, while thenational preserve portion is open to sporthunting and trapping, under federal regula-tion.19 It is also worth noting, in case one isinclined to frame this issue in a partisanway, that the Democrat Andrus was work-ing within a framework of withdrawalsestablished by his Republican predecessorin the Nixon administration, Rogers C. B.Morton. Furthermore, one of the mainopponents of the Carter proclamations wasAlaska Senator Mike Gravel, a Democrat.

Accusations of partisan politics resur-faced again—with a vengeance —in 1996.There is no question that proclaimingGrand Staircase–Escalante National Monu-ment was a calculated election-year move byPresident Bill Clinton, one sure to win himfavor nationally while costing him nothingin the electoral college, since Utah was irre-trievably Republican. But, as Mark Squil-lace goes on to explain in his chapter,Clinton’s second-term proclamations werenot only politically astute, but strategic in adifferent way: they were based on carefully

crafted and ecologically significant recom-mendations by Secretary of the InteriorBruce Babbitt. Not only did Babbitt offer tovisit potential new monuments and meetwith the local congressional delegationbefore making a recommendation to thepresident—discussions that often sparkedchanges in the monument proposal—healso encouraged delegations to preempt theprocess by developing their own alternativeplans for protecting areas that were underconsideration as potential monuments.“This last concession resulted in legislationprotecting several remarkable areas thatwould not likely have received congression-al attention without indications from thesecretary that these areas were being con-sidered for national monument status,”notes Squillace.20 By allowing local intereststhe leeway to develop their own protectionstrategies for these lands, presumably theresults would be more in tune with theirneeds and desires than a monument desig-nation.

Babbitt was painted as an uncompro-mising ideologue by his opponents, butSquillace details just how much he was con-cerned with accommodating local objec-tions and certain commercial requests (suchas for utility rights of way across SonoranDesert National Monument). Nor was Bab-bitt interested in exposing the AntiquitiesAct to possible amendment or repeal byrecklessly using it—which may be why hedid not push Clinton to proclaim the ArcticNational Wildlife Refuge as a national mon-ument. In light of continued attempts toopen portions of the refuge to oil drilling,environmentalists may well point to Bab-bitt’s decision (and that of Andrus beforehim) as a matter of deep regret, although theadditional protections monument statuswould have added may not be enough to


Grand Staircase–Escalante National Monument. Photo cour-tesy of the Bureau of Land Management.

prevent Congress from authorizing drillinganyway.

However much Babbitt and Clintonwere willing to voluntarily engage with localopponents of monuments, they were notready to support proposals to amend theAct to require public consultations beforeproclamations are made. This brings up afundamental issue of fairness, the analysis ofwhich is the crux of James R. Rasband’sessay.21 It is not enough, he argues, for themonuments to have achieved—as virtuallyall of them have—widespread ex post factoacceptance, even among former local oppo-nents. No matter how overwhelmingly pos-itive the Act’s accomplishments, Rasbandsays, the process by which they wereachieved is deeply, perhaps fatally, flawedbecause it is undemocratic and thereforeruns counter to the entire basis of Americangovernment, which is founded on the freeconsent of an informed citizenry. This is aserious criticism, and cannot be ignored.

Rasband is not denying that the Acthas been beneficial; for him, “the criticalquestion is whether the same or similarresults could be achieved by a process thatdoes not so thoroughly disregard the inputand interests of rural communities and stateand local governments.” He thinks it could,and wants to see an amendment to the Actrequiring local consultation and impactstudies prior to proclamation. He goes on torebut a number of arguments that are oftenmade against amending the Act, pointingout that the Federal Land Policy and Man-agement Act can now be used to achievemany of the same goals. For Rasband,FLPMA has rendered the Antiquities Actlargely (though not completely) superflu-ous. He closes his argument by askingwhether the paternalistic decision-makingstructure of the Act—what he calls “con-

quest by certitude,” borrowing a phrasefrom Charles Wilkinson—is really appro-priate today, particularly given the fact thatpublic participation and impact studies areso firmly enshrined in the rest of naturalresources law.

On purely ethical grounds it really isdifficult to disagree with Rasband, and hemay be right that FLPMA can substitute forthe Antiquities Act in many cases. Even so,several counterarguments can be made.One is based on the assumption that some-times, even in a democracy, it is good for thepresident to be able to make unilateral deci-sions on crucial issues. At the risk of draw-

ing disproportionate parallels, think of theleeway given to the president in setting for-eign policy, or in nominating members ofthe cabinet. While these are subject to somemeasure of congressional oversight andeven formal approval, by custom the presi-dent is usually allowed to exercise strongleadership in these realms. This is so pre-cisely because the potential for paralyzingfractiousness is so high under any other sce-nario. One could plausibly argue that con-servation policy, with respect to the man-agement of public lands, is a like category,


Olympic National Park originated as Mount Olympus NationalMonument. Photo courtesy of the National Park Service.

both in terms of its momentousness and thepotential for decision-making to becomemired in the quicksand of partisan politics.The story told by Andrus and Freemuthabout the Carter monuments is a case inpoint. Furthermore, the special nature ofland withdrawals tends to pit local interestsagainst national ones, and to the extent thatmembers of Congress are reluctant to over-ride objections to a proposed land with-drawal from the delegation of the stateinvolved, the process is hog-tied. If that isconsidered undesirable, then it is a goodthing for the president to be able to cut thisGordian Knot using the power bestowed bythe Antiquities Act.

Part of Rasband’s argument is that theends do not justify the means, and that theprocess of the Act does not live up to thewilderness ideals that its resulting monu-ments promote. Yet one can respond thatthe quality of the ends achieved is, in fact,important to consider. Moreover, wilder-ness values are not the only ones being pro-tected by large natural-area monuments.David Harmon brings out both these pointsin his chapter.22 Arguing from the conceptof ecological significance, he shows howthese monuments variously exemplify rari-ty, superlativeness, representivity, and eco-logical integrity. The full worth of thesequalities emerges only when placed in alarger systems context. For example, the fea-tures preserved in the geological and cavemonuments are interesting in themselves,but they disclose added value when consid-ered as contributors to worldwide geodiver-sity. Similarly, individual World Heritagesites are spectacular places to visit, yet theirimportance truly blossoms only whenunderstood as parts of a global system ofrecognition of places of outstanding univer-sal value. The same holds for monuments as

components of ecoregional representivityschemes and as units in a network monitor-ing the “Vital Signs” of ecological integrity.In all these areas the Act has made crucialcontributions to the evolving practice ofnature conservation.

Another argument against amendingthe Act is that its most recent uses are moreflexible and more cognizant of local inter-ests—that application of the law is evolvingto meet new needs and desires. As told byElena Daly and Geoffrey B. Middaugh, theBureau of Land Management’s new Nation-al Landscape Conservation System is posi-tioning itself to become a systematic exem-plar of the “new paradigm” of protectedareas. A major shift in conservation theory,the new paradigm holds that the futureexpansion of protected areas will come lessand less from new Yellowstone-modelexclusionary parks and more and morefrom protected landscapes and managedresource extraction areas.23 These areessentially multiple-use areas with astronger preservationist/protectionist man-agement overlay than that found on lands astraditionally managed by the BLM.Whether the bureau can make the new par-adigm work in an American political con-


Jewel Cave National Monument, South Dakota. Photo cour-tesy of the National Park Service.

text, and whether it can establish a true dis-tinction between its new monuments andother BLM lands, remains to be seen. Butclearly, armed now with an organic act(FLPMA, passed in 1976) and chargedwith a newfound mission of creating a dif-ferent kind of national monument, the BLMis poised to transcend its lineage as thebureau in charge of the leftover landsnobody wanted.24

The BLM has also been given the taskof co-managing two new national monu-ments along with the National Park Service.The field report from one of them, GrandCanyon–Parashant National Monument, islargely a story of the difficulties in gettingtwo very different agency cultures to mesh.25

The authors, Parashant co-superintendentsDarla Sidles (NPS) and Dennis Curtis(BLM), candidly admit that many field stafffrom both sides looked at co-managementas the bureaucratic equivalent of a shotgunwedding. Indeed, the first organizationalstructure for Parashant did not work andhad to be replaced. But persistence is begin-ning to pay off: Sidles and Curtis give us asupervisor’s-eye view of how the monu-ment is drawing from both BLM and NPSpolicies and practices to come up with

innovations in such basic park functions assignage, interpretive planning, vehicle usemanagement, and more. Parashant is anunfinished experiment, but that is preciselythe point: there is nothing in the AntiquitiesAct that prohibits flexibility in how protec-tion is achieved, or by whom. While mostmonuments are still under the exclusivejurisdiction of the National Park Service,thanks to the Carter and Clinton proclama-tions several are now managed or co-man-aged by the BLM, U.S. Forest Service, U.S.Fish and Wildlife Service, and, in oneinstance, the Armed Forces RetirementHome. We can expect that as these newmonuments mature, the respective manag-ing agencies will place their own stamp onthem.26 It is even conceivable that we willsee new national monuments that are co-managed by one or more federal partners inconcert with nonfederal entities, such astribal, state, or local governments, or withnonprofit organizations.

We might also witness the applicationof the Antiquities Act to an entirely newfrontier: the oceans. Conservation of the seais fundamentally different from that on land,for a variety of biophysical, ecological, polit-ical, social, and legal reasons. Brad Barr andKatrina Van Dine endorse the notion thattools such as the Act need to be available tovisionary leaders so that they may lookbeyond the concerns of the moment to theneeds of future generations, especially inthe ocean realm. Marine ecosystems can beirreparably damaged in a surprisingly shorttime. The conventional course toward des-ignating a new national marine sanctuarycan takes years because of public involve-ment requirements—during which lag timefisheries can collapse, seabeds be devastat-ed by bottom-trawling, and ecosystemstructure be seriously compromised. The


Grand Canyon–Parashant National Monument. Photo cour-tesy of the National Park Service.

authors observe that “the political will tomove forward with a controversial procla-mation of a national monument can buytime for building constituencies of support”while simultaneously safeguarding marineecosystems. Used strategically, Barr andVan Dine conclude, the Antiquities Act“has the potential to accomplish what maybe considerably more difficult to do withoutit, and offers more certainty that effectiveprotection will be achieved.”27

IN ASSESSING THE OVERALL VALUE OF THE

Act, we must emphasize again that it isabout more than just national monuments.We must recognize as well the indisputableimportance of the Act to the development ofarchaeology and historic preservation inAmerica. Francis P. McManamon makes thecritical point that there was nothing foreor-dained about the basic policies governingthe public interest in archaeological sites—“the need for well-qualified individualswith sufficient institutional support to con-duct archaeological investigations, and thefundamental commemorative, educational,and scientific values of archaeologicalresources.”28 We take these for grantedtoday, but in 1906 Congress could just as

well have “solved” the looting problem byadopting a less comprehensive, more com-mercially oriented approach that empha-sized recovery and display, or even the sale,of individual items rather than preservationof whole sites in context. Congress couldhave ignored the requirement for carefulrecording, analysis, and reporting as essen-tial elements of archaeological investiga-tions and overlooked the requirement ofpublic interpretation and stewardship ofcollected artifacts and data. In 1906 itwould have been a defensible position totake; after all, American archaeology was inits infancy and had no long-standing tradi-tion of professional standards. As we canclearly see now, that would have been a farless satisfactory solution. Beyond this,McManamon sees a vigorous legal lineageextending from the Antiquities Act throughlater federal historic preservation law. How-ever, as he goes on to point out, severalcourt cases in the 1970s deemed the Act toovague to be used to prosecute criminal loot-ing. To remedy this, Congress could haveamended the Act. Significantly, it chose toleave the venerable law intact, instead pass-ing a new, targeted statute, the Archaeologi-cal Resources Protection Act of 1979.


California Coastal National Monument. Photo courtesy of theBureau of Land Management.

Gila Cliff Dwellings National Monument, New Mexico. Photocourtesy of the National Park Service.

Joe E. Watkins provides a Native Am-erican’s perspective on the Act. He associ-ates it with the federal government’s cam-paign to make American Indians disappear,both physically (through military action)and culturally (by “de-Indianizing” them).After all, during the Act’s formative yearseconomic, social, and political tensions alsoproduced the Wounded Knee massacre, theexpropriation of American Indian lands bythe Jerome and Dawes Commissions, andthe destruction of tribal sovereignty by theCurtis Act, although there are no directcontemporary links between the Act andthese tragic events. The Antiquities Act, inrecognizing the developing professionalismin American archaeology, privileged archae-ologists, historians, and scientists, puttingAmerican Indian objects and sites, as wellas their interpretation, in the public do-main, under the control of non-Indian ex-perts in museums and universities. Unfortu-nately, the experts too often reduced NativeAmerican cultures, and to some degreeIndian people themselves, to the status ofdata to be described, organized, and sal-vaged before they disappeared. Then too,some of the natural-area national monu-ments proclaimed under the Act also sub-verted Indian culture by disregarding theirstatus as sacred sites. Watkins concludesthat “in some ways the Antiquities Act of1906 can be seen to be a continuation ofgovernment policies that were aimed aterasing the image of the contemporaryAmerican Indian from the landscape infavor of the ‘dead and disappearing culture’destined to exist only in museums or to beengulfed in mainstream America.”29 Yet hetoo sees the Act as the direct ancestor oflaws that have given rise to, among otherthings, a growing number of autonomousTribal Historic Preservation Offices.

Jerry L. Rogers also traces the source ofsystematic historic preservation back to1906 and the Antiquities Act, which, alongwith the Historic Sites Act of 1935 and theNational Historic Preservation Act of 1966,“launched a national idea of historic preser-vation.” In addition, these laws “consolidat-ed federal leadership of the field in theNational Park Service, and spread theireffects throughout an amazingly extensiveand effective network in the United States.”Importantly, he also emphasizes how thefield of historic preservation, like that ofnature conservation, is not remaining static.Innovations in identifying intangible cultur-al heritage and protecting cultural land-scapes—which draw from the some of thesame ideas as does the “new paradigm” ofprotected areas—challenge the NationalPark Service and other monument-manag-

ing agencies in ways not seen before. Rogersspecifically calls on the Park Service toabandon its bunker mentality with respectto the Clinton-era monuments assigned toother agencies. Rather, NPS should try toconstructively influence the others’ manage-ment standards and philosophies. Doing socalls for a “bold leadership posture” that


Minidoka Internment National Monument, Idaho. Photo cour-tesy of the National Park Service.

risks “the security of past gains for the pos-sibility of greater future gains.”30 Here againwe see the effects of the Antiquities Actplaying out in fresh and unexpected ways.

WHAT, THEN, CAN WE CONCLUDE ABOUT THIS

remarkable, still-controversial law? Tosome, it has been a callous abuse of presi-dential power; to others, a triumph of pres-idential vision. To American Indians, it hashad a unique and often troubling meaning.The most basic question, however, is this: isthe Antiquities Act a bad law, or a good law?

One way to answer that question is topose some others: think of what the Ameri-can landscape would look like today had theAct never been passed. Would anything atall be left of Chaco, Wupatki, Bandelier, anda host of other pre-Columbian sites in theSouthwest? Would the irreplaceable earth-works of Effigy Mounds or Hopewell Cul-ture still be intact? Would the shorelines ofAcadia and Olympic have long since beensold off for vacation homes? Would thepublic be able to enjoy the fantastic land-scapes and rock formations of Arches, Zion,Bryce Canyon, Capitol Reef, or RainbowBridge? Would the Grand Canyon be bor-dered by rim-side trophy houses of the richand shot through with private trails, tollroads, and spurious mine claims? Would wehave preserved such ecologically important(but less obviously scenic) places as JoshuaTree, Saguaro, and Organ Pipe Cactus? Orthe paleontological treasures of Dinosaur?Would we have missed out on preservingEdison’s laboratory, the historic towpathsalong the Potomac at C&O Canal, and theJapanese-American internment camp atMinidoka? What would have become ofKatmai—the fabled Valley of Ten Thou-sand Smokes? Of Glacier Bay? Of Wran-

gell–St. Elias and tens of millions of otheracres of public land in Alaska?

The Antiquities Act, like other legallandmarks of American archaeology, his-toric preservation, and nature conservation,is the product of intentions and actions thatdon’t always measure up to, and sometimescontradict, our stated national ideals. Butthe conservation of the country’s naturaland cultural heritage always has been awork in progress. It must continue to be, forit is a job that by its very character can neverbe finished. Effective conservation requiresconstant self-evaluation and a willingness toaccept criticism. It is important, therefore,to honestly criticize the Antiquities Act forfailing to achieve a better record in fosteringdemocratic participation in decision-mak-ing, for not going about the protection of“objects of historic and scientific interest”in a more systematic manner, for contribut-ing to the “imperial presidency,” for failingto adequately acknowledge the interests oflocal communities, for helping to dispos-sess Native Americans of their past. Impor-tant to criticize, and seek to improve—butnot to condemn. For if we insist on holdingthe Act to an impossibly high standard, andare willing to seriously weaken or evenannul it on these grounds, we must be pre-pared to do the same for a great many otherlaws whose effects reach into every cornerof American life.

A more judicious approach is to assess,to the best of our ability, whether the bene-fits of the Act have outweighed the draw-backs. As just noted, this assessment mustforever be provisional, always remainingsubject to periodic re-evaluation in the lightof new facts and new sensibilities. All wecan do is pass interim judgment from a par-ticular point in time. From where we sit in2006, our judgment is that, on balance, the


Antiquities Act has served this country verywell. An America without the AntiquitiesAct would be one with a much shallowerperspective on the past. It would have farless capacity to correct this problem, for itwould lack the professional cultural her-itage expertise necessary to do so. It wouldbe much less beautiful, with much less eco-logical integrity. It would be far more com-mercial, and burdened with a meaner civicspirit.

When the Act was passed in 1906, theclock was running down on the first, expan-sionist phase of American history. Now, ahundred years later, a momentous centurylooms ahead. It may yet prove to be aCentury of Conservation, whose main chal-lenges will be effectively meeting thedemands of modern life while maintainingthe cultural, historical, and natural environ-ments that we have come to cherish andexpect. The world is becoming evermorecrowded with people, and pressures onarchaeological sites, historic resources, andthe few remaining natural areas are only

becoming more dire. With isolationismbecoming less and less viable, the need forcitizens to appreciate and value the fulldiversity of the American past, and of thepeople (both ancient and modern) whocontributed to it, has never been greater.The protections realized by the AntiquitiesAct have left us in a much better position todeal with these challenges. Over the pastcentury, more inclusive ideals and new waysof thinking have raised important chal-lenges to the foundations of Americanarchaeology, historic preservation, andnature conservation, challenges that mustbe considered and addressed. Yet the edi-fice that stands on the foundation, the legalframework that protects and helps usunderstand America’s natural and culturalheritage, is indispensable. The AntiquitiesAct, for all its own flaws, is a cornerstone ofthat structure. That is reason enough to cel-ebrate its first hundred years of achieve-ment, and to look forward to new and inno-vative uses being made of it in the century tocome.


Endnotes1. Confusingly, there are numerous other parks and protected areas, authorized through reg-ular congressional legislation rather than through the Antiquities Act, that are designated“National Monument” (or were at the time of their creation). Examples include Agate FossilBeds, Badlands (now National Park), Booker T. Washington, Canyon de Chelly, CongareeSwamp (now Congaree National Park), El Malpais, Mount Saint Helens Volcanic NationalMonument (managed by the U.S. Forest Service), and Pecos (now National Historical Park),among many others. Throughout this paper, the term “national monument” will be used asa shorthand for any park or protected area, no matter what its current designation, that orig-inated or was expanded through the use of the Antiquities Act—thereby excluding suchparks as those listed above. See also Squillace 2006.2. Wrangell–St. Elias and Glacier Bay actually are part of a single World Heritage site madeup of a complex of parks, including several in Canada.3. The primacy of a non-commercial value in United States public policy for other kinds ofcultural and historic resources continues from its foundation in section 3 of the AntiquitiesAct to the 1935 Historic Sites Act, the 1966 National Historic Preservation Act, and the1979 Archaeological Resources Protection Act, the four most important cultural resource

statutes of the twentieth century. See McManamon 2006, Rogers 2006.4. Regarding paleontology: “Despite the conflicting interpretations of whether Congressintended for the phrase “objects of antiquity” to include paleontological resources, theAntiquities Act served for nearly seventy-five years as the primary authority for the protec-tion and permitting of fossils on lands administered by the Departments of Agriculture andInterior” (Santucci 2005:1).5. Before the Antiquities Act was passed, biology played a role in creating Sequoia, Yosemite,and General Grant (now part of Kings Canyon) national parks, as it did in some early pro-posals for boundary changes. Still, “evidence that biologic and geologic considerations influ-enced selection of national monuments is more certain...” (Shafer 1999:190). Once the Actwas passed, a related question arose as to the difference between a national monument and anational park. To some, the monuments were national-parks-in-waiting: “Some confusionhas arisen as to the difference between parks and monuments.... The object of a monumentis the preservation from destruction or spoliation of some object of historic, scientific, orother interest. The object of a park is that and something more; namely, the development ofthe area reserved for its more complete and perfect enjoyment by the people. It might be saidthat a monument is park raw material, because many of the existing monuments, in all prob-ability, will receive park status when their development as parks is practicable” (Cameron1922:8). See also Harmon 2006.6. NPS 2005.7. Lee 2006. The unabridged version of Lee’s study is available for downloading from theNPS Archeology Program website: www.cr.nps.gov/archeology/pubs/Lee/index.htm.8. See Lee 1970; Snead 2001; and Preservation of Historic and Prehistoric Ruins, Etc., hear-ing before the Subcommittee of the Committee on Public Lands, April 20, 1904, SenateDocument no. 314, 58th Cong., 2nd Sess.9. Hays 1959; Limerick 1987; McManamon 2003.10. As Native Americans now point out, the use of the term “ruins” (along with other com-mon descriptors of ancestral sites, such as “abandoned”) implies that these ancient ancestralsites are no longer of any value, when in fact they are often still part of a tribe’s living tradi-tions. For a discussion, see Halfmoon-Salazar 2006.11. Several recent studies have made the point that landscapes had to be de-inhabited,stripped of their Native American cultural associations, before they could be reconstructedas being purely natural and then transformed into national parks; see Catton 1997; Kellerand Turek 1998; Spence 1999.12. Miller 2006:66.13. Thompson 2006.14. Thompson 2006:46.15. Conard 2006.16. Miller 2006:66–67.17. Rothman 2006.18. Andrus and Freemuth 2006.19. Norris 2004.20. Squillace 2006:112. See also Squillace 2003.


21. Rasband 2006.22. Harmon 2006.23. Daly and Middaugh 2006. Categories V and VI, respectively, in the IUCN internationalcategory system. The new paradigm has roots in, among other things, the British conceptionof national parks, international work in cultural landscapes, and interdisciplinary theories of“sense of place.” In international protected area work, the new paradigm is gaining in influ-ence. For an introduction, see Phillips 2003. For protected landscapes and category VI areasgenerally, see Brown et al. 2005.24. The role of the BLM’s predecessor, the General Land Office (GLO), is an interestingside story to all of this. As Daly and Middaugh note, the GLO can hardly claim a stellarrecord for good government, nor was it ever consistently a conservation leader among feder-al agencies. Nonetheless, a good deal of credit has to be given to the two GLO commission-ers active just before the passage of the Antiquities Act, Binger Hermann and W. A. Richards,for proactively withdrawing several key areas pending permanent preservation, among themMesa Verde (which was made a national park by congressional legislation three weeks afterthe Act was passed) and Chaco Canyon. Hermann and Richards’ repeated attempts toinduce national park proposals are an underappreciated chapter in the history of Americanland conservation.25. Sidles and Curtis 2006.26. In the early years of its existence the National Park Service grossly underfunded thenational monuments, paying their managers salaries on the order of $1 per month, and con-sequently the level of protection the monuments were afforded was vastly inferior to thatgiven to places designated as national parks. Today, while considerable discrepancies remainamong the budgets of individual parks, all of them—no matter how designated—are managedaccording to a basic set of policies (NPS 2000) that provide for much more consistencyacross the national park system. For example, the quality and philosophical approach ofresource management being done in Bryce Canyon (which is now a national park but beganas a national monument) should not in practice differ substantially from that being carriedout in comparably sized Bandelier (which began as and remains a national monument). Inthe new BLM monuments under the National Landscape Conservation System, there is alsoa basic consistency in that most visitor infrastructure is to be located outside the boundariesin adjacent towns. By contrast, the handful of national monuments under the Forest Servicediffer greatly in management. For example, the intensity of visitor services and preservation-ist orientation of Mount St. Helens National Volcanic Monument make it “much more like anational park than a national forest,” while at Admiralty Island and Misty Fiords NationalMonuments in Alaska, management is not much different from that of the adjacent TongassNational Forest. For the Forest Service’s management of its monuments, see Williams 2003.27. Barr and Van Dine 2006:257, 252.28. McManamon 2006:161.29. Watkins 2006:196.30. Rogers 2006:176, 185.


ReferencesAndrus, Cecil D., and John C. Freemuth. 2006. President Carter’s coup: An insider’s view

of the 1978 Alaska monument designations. In Harmon et al. 2006, 93–105.Barr, Brad, and Katrina Van Dine. 2006. Application of the Antiquities Act to the oceans:

Something old, something new, something borrowed, something blue. In Harmon et al.2006, 251–263.

Brown, Jessica, Nora Mitchell, and Michael Beresford, eds. 2005. The Protected LandscapeApproach: Linking Nature, Culture and Community. Gland, Switzerland, and Cam-bridge, U.K.: IUCN.

Cameron, Jenks. 1922. The National Park Service: Its History, Activities and Organization.Institute for Government Research, Service Monographs of the United States Gov-ernment no. 11. New York: D. Appleton and Co.

Catton, Theodore. 1997. Inhabited Wilderness: Indians, Eskimos, and National Parks inAlaska. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press.

Conard, Rebecca. 2006. John F. Lacey: Conservation’s public servant. In Harmon et al.2006, 48–63.

Daly, Elena, and Geoffrey B. Middaugh. 2006. The Antiquities Act meets the Federal LandPolicy and Management Act. In Harmon et al. 2006, 219–234.

Halfmoon-Salazar, Virginia. 2006. Changing ideas and perceptions. In People, Places, andParks: Proceedings of the 2005 George Wright Society Conference on Parks, ProtectedAreas, and Cultural Sites. David Harmon, ed. Hancock, Mich.: The George WrightSociety.

Harmon, David. 2006. The Antiquities Act and nature conservation. In Harmon et al. 2006,199–215.

Harmon, David, Francis P. McManamon, and Dwight T. Pitcaithley, eds. 2006. TheAntiquities Act: A Century of American Archaeology, Historic Preservation, and NatureConservation. Tucson: University of Arizona Press.

Hays, Samuel P. 1959. Conservation and the Gospel of Efficiency: The Progressive Conserva-tion Movement, 1890–1920. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press.

Keller, Robert H., and Michael F. Turek. 1998. American Indians & National Parks.Tucson: University of Arizona Press.

Lee, Ronald F. 1970. The Antiquities Act of 1906. Washington, D.C.: National Park Service,Office of History and Historic Architecture, Eastern Service Center. [Reprinted, Jour-nal of the Southwest 42:2 (2000), 198–269.]

———. 2006. The origins of the Antiquities Act. In Harmon et al. 2006, 15–34.Limerick, Patricia Nelson. 1987. The Legacy of Conquest: The Unbroken Past of the American

West. New York: W. W. Norton.McManamon, Francis P. 2003. Archaeology, nationalism, and ancient America. In The

Politics of Archaeology and Identity in a Global Context. Susan Kane, ed. Boston: Arch-aeological Institute of America.

———. 2006. The foundation for American public archaeology: Section 3 of the AntiquitiesAct of 1906. In Harmon et al. 2006, 153–175.

Miller, Char. 2006. The Antiquities Act, big-stick conservation, and the modern state. In


Harmon et al. 2006, 64–78.Norris, Frank B. 2004. A historical overview of consumptive use patterns in National Park

Service areas. In Protecting Our Diverse Heritage: The Role of Parks, Protected Areas,and Cultural Sites. David Harmon, Bruce M. Kilgore, and Gay E. Vietzke, eds. Han-cock, Michigan: The George Wright Society, 326–327.

NPS [National Park Service]. 2000. National Park Service Management Policies 2001.Washington, D.C.: NPS.

———. 2005. The National Parks: Shaping the System. Rev. ed. Harpers Ferry, W.Va.:Harpers Ferry Center, NPS.

Phillips, Adrian. 2003. Turning ideas on their head: The new paradigm for protected areas.The George Wright Forum 20:2, 8–32.

Rasband, James R. 2006. Antiquities Act monuments: The Elgin Marbles of our publiclands? In Harmon et al. 2006, 137–150.

Rogers, Jerry L. 2006. The Antiquities Act and historic preservation. In Harmon et al. 2006,176–186.

Rothman, Hal. 2006. Showdown at Jackson Hole: A monumental backlash against theAntiquities Act. In Harmon et al. 2006, 81–92.

Santucci, Vincent L. 2005. Fossils, objects of antiquity, and the Antiquities Act (1906).Unpublished manuscript. McLean, Virginia: National Park Service.

Shafer, Craig L. 1999. History of selection and system planning for US natural area nation-al parks and monuments: Beauty and biology. Biodiversity and Conservation 8,189–204.

Sidles, Darla, and Dennis Curtis. 2006. Co-managed monuments: A field report on the firstyears of Grand Canyon–Parashant National Monument. In Harmon et al. 2006,235–250.

Snead, James E. 2001. Ruins and Rivals: The Making of Southwest Archaeology. Tucson:University of Arizona Press.

Spence, Mark David. 1999. Dispossessing the Wilderness: Indian Removal and the Making ofthe National Parks. New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Squillace, Mark. 2003. The monumental legacy of the Antiquities Act of 1906. Georgia LawReview 37:2, 473–610.

———. 2006. The Antiquities Act and the exercise of presidential power: The Clinton mon-uments. In Harmon et al. 2006,106–136.

Thompson, Raymond Harris. 2006. Edgar Lee Hewett and the politics of archaeology. InHarmon et al. 2006, 35–47.

Watkins, Joe E. 2006. The Antiquities Act at one hundred years: A Native American per-spective. In Harmon et al. 2006, 187–198.

Williams, Gerald W. 2003. National monuments and the Forest Service. Unpublished man-uscript, November 18.



The ICOMOS–Ename Charter Initiative: Rethinking the Role of Heritage Interpretation in the 21st Century

Neil Silberman

“OF MAKING MANY BOOKS THERE IS NO END,” writes the biblical author of Ecclesiastes—andso it seems that of the making of many international heritage conventions, principles, andguidelines there also seems to be no end in sight. Beginning with the 1931 Athens Charterfor the Restoration of Historic Monuments, through the 1964 Venice Charter, and continu-ing with the recent adoption of the 2003 ICOMOS Charter for the Analysis, Conservationand Structural Restoration of Architectural Heritage, the international heritage communityhas produced and ratified a long line of doctrinal texts setting out standards for best prac-tices in the conservation and maintenance of cultural resources all over the world. Still, thereremains a gap in the international consensus. While most existing cultural heritage chartersand documents deal primarily with issues of physical conservation and site management,none specifically addresses the principles of effective communication of the significance ofcultural heritage sites.

THE ICOMOS–ENAME CHARTER:New Principles for Interpreting

Cultural Heritage Sites

The activity of physical conservation isthe indispensable core and focus of allattempts to preserve the material heritagefor future generations, yet it is entangled ina dense web of political, economic, social,and even psychological relationships that—if ignored—can doom even the most sophis-ticated conservation projects to neglect andeventual destruction. International guide-lines for physical conservation have indeedbeen broadened and strengthened in recentyears by the formulation of internationalstandards on professional training, heritagetourism, and procedures for site manage-ment that address the importance of site

interpretation in varying degrees of detail.But few have examined the direct relation-ship between various interpretation types,methods, and technologies and the widersocial context, conservation rationale, or theultimate sustainability of cultural heritagesites.

Admittedly, interpretation is an ex-ceedingly abstract and subjective concept,when compared to the tangible conserva-tion challenges of frescoes, mosaics,stonework, and earthen architecture. Yet noless than ancient pigments, tesserae, ash-lars, and mudbricks, interpretation gives lifeto the ideas and images that determine how

The ICOMOS–Ename Charter


people relate to the material remains thatsurround them. The sheer effort invested ininterpretation in recent years is clear evi-dence of this perceived importance.Traditional didactic, museum-type text dis-plays are now utilized mostly when budget-ary constraints mandate only the cheapest,no-frills presentation. More creative andenergetic interpretive solutions, such asspecial-interest or thematic guided tours,costumed or character-based interpreters,special educational activities, and interac-tive applications and virtual reality experi-ences are usually utilized when the projectbudget permits. But they are of widely dif-fering cost, quality, and technical means.And their impact on visitors, on attendancefigures, and indeed on the perception of thesite as a whole among the local communityhave only now begun to be studied in greatdetail.

There is another ominous develop-ment in the heritage field that further under-lines the need for a closer examination ofsite interpretation. In an era when publicculture budgets are shrinking and culturalinstitutions of all kinds are being forced tobecome self-sustaining, the choice of siteinterpretation methods and technologies isoften determined by their ability to stimu-late local economic development: by paidadmissions, subsidiary sales of postcardsand other museum-shop items, employ-ment opportunities, and a steady flow oftourist revenue for hotels, shops, andrestaurants in the immediate vicinity. All toooften, finances and balance sheets are nowallowed to become the real tyrants in deter-mining how cultural heritage sites are pre-sented to the public. This transformation ofcultural heritage sites into venues fortourism and leisure-time entertainmentposes great dangers for the cause of conser-

vation in the long-run. If the right balance isnot achieved between the contribution ofoutside scholars, exhibit designers, and her-itage professionals and the local communi-ty, the site development project, even iffinancially successful, can appear to localresidents as an outside imposition—like ashopping mall or private theme park—withsolely or mainly economic significance forthe community. It can also sow resentmentamong those not immediately benefitingfrom the gains, and who often suffer fromthe successful site’s side effects—a lack ofparking, traffic congestion, and disruptionof normal routines. It can thus be dismissedas “someone else’s” monument, an alienintrusion not meaningfully integrated intothe memories, stories, and attitudes thatconstitute the entire community’s sharedidentity.

Economic success, of course, is by nomeans guaranteed. Some sites, no matterhow meticulously researched and elabo-rately developed, will never attract largenumbers of visitors, for the routes oftourism are exceptionally inflexible, basedless on content than on the convenience ofnearby highways and airports, the pressuresof itinerary planning, and the most comfort-able facilities. Although everything maylook perfect to the invited dignitaries andguests at an elaborately preserved and inter-preted site on a festive opening day, three tofive years later, when unrealistic expecta-tions of increased visitation have failed tomaterialize and the costs of adequatestaffing, maintenance, and regular contentupdating have soared, a site’s degradedphysical state and its outdated interpretiveinfrastructure can cripple its usefulness as aviable, valuable memory institution for bothoutside visitor and for the members of thelocal community.



History of the Ename Charter initiativeThese concerns about interpretation

plans and methods served as the impetusfor the formulation of a charter that mightachieve international consensus about theintellectual, ethical, social, and economiccontexts in which heritage interpretationmight be most effectively and constructivelycarried out. In the spring of 2002, an initialdraft was formulated by the staff of theEname Center, based on close consultationwith a range of international colleagues, andfollowing the model of earlier charters inthe cultural heritage field. This first draftwas circulated widely during the summer of2002 in anticipation of the Ghent Confer-ence on Heritage, Technology and LocalDevelopment later that year.

The structure of this first draft of theEname Charter for the Interpretation ofCultural Heritage Sites was entirely focusedon the role of heritage professionals in theinterpretive process. Its central theme wasthe importance of integrated planning—inwhich the interpretation would not be seenmerely as a matter of information transmis-sion or scenography meant to fill thesilences and empty spaces of an otherwiseunembellished cultural heritage site. Thetext was divided into sections on scientificand professional guidelines; planning,funding and management; tourism aspects;and heritage education. Its goal was toaddress the most common planning andmanagement problems that had time andagain doomed meticulously (and expensive-ly!) developed sites to become deterioratingeyesores in just a few years.

As a follow-up to the discussions inGhent, a special roundtable discussion onthe Ename Charter was organized by theU.S. National Park Service in Washingtonon 13 November 2002. The National Park

Service’s chief archaeologist, Francis P.McManamon, brought together representa-tives of the Ename Center, of numerousNPS programs and departments, as well asof the U.S. Advisory Council on HistoricPreservation, Bureau of Land Management,Forest Service, Archaeological Institute ofAmerica, Society for Historical Archae-ology, Archaeological Conservancy, and theUniversity of Maryland Center for HeritageResource Studies and Historic PreservationProgram. Also present was Gustavo Araoz,executive director of US/ICOMOS (theU.S. National Committee of the Inter-national Council on Monuments and Sites).The discussions at this roundtable werefruitful, highlighting common concerns andemphasizing the need for this document togo beyond planning issues into the largersocial implications of heritage interpreta-tion. Araoz, also serving as the ICOMOSInternational vice-president for internation-al scientific committees, encouraged furtherdevelopment of the charter and a closerworking relationship with the internationalscientific committees and national commit-tees of ICOMOS International.

In January 2004, the executive com-mittee of ICOMOS agreed that the work ofreview and revision of what would now becalled the “ICOMOS–Ename Charter”would be undertaken under the auspices ofa small editorial group consisting of interna-tional vice-presidents Gustavo Araoz andSheridan Burke; the international secretary-general, Dinu Bumbaru; and the interna-tional treasurer, Giora Solar (who wereappointed to this group by ICOMOSPresident Michael Petzet), working closelywith a team chosen by the Ename Center(consisting of Ename Center director NeilSilberman and former ICOMOS secretary-general Jean-Louis Luxen).



Unlike other charters in the past,whose drafting and initial review processwas the responsibility of a particular ICO-MOS International Scientific Committee(ISC), the ICOMOS–Ename Charter’s rele-vance to a range of specializations withinthe heritage disciplines—and its potentialimportance to a wide range of stakeholdergroups—lessened the need for a singlesponsoring ISC. Accordingly, it was decid-ed to distribute an initial draft of the text toall of the ICOMOS ISCs as well as a smallgroup of interpretation professionals foroverall comments, reactions, and sugges-tions. This first round of ISC review tookplace during the period April–June 2004.At the conclusion of this review cycle, DraftTwo (dated 24 June 2004) was distributedto all national committees of ICOMOS. Bythe end of August 2004, Draft Three (dated23 August 2004) was produced by the edi-torial committee, integrating the manydetailed comments received from ICOMOSnational committees, individual scholarsand experts, and the executive committee ofICOMOS.

Presentation versus interpretationThrough continuous and intensive

consultation, the text has evolved consider-ably from its earlier form that was more nar-rowly focused on the concerns of heritageprofessionals into a more broadly baseddocument dealing with seven main princi-ples that firmly position heritage interpreta-tion as a contemporary activity within awider social context. One of the mostimportant conceptual insights that arose inthe course of the charter review process wasthe distinction that should be madebetween the terms “presentation” and“interpretation” when referring to culturalheritage sites. “Presentation” denotes the

carefully planned arrangement of informa-tion and physical access to a cultural her-itage site, usually by scholars, design firms,and heritage professionals. As such, it islargely a one-way mode of communication.“Interpretation,” on the other hand,denotes the totality of activity, reflection,research, and creativity stimulated by a cul-tural heritage site. Although professionalsand scholars play important roles in thisprocess, the input and involvement of visi-tors, local and associated communitygroups, and other stakeholders of variousages and educational backgrounds shouldbe seen as essential to the goal of transform-ing cultural heritage sites from static monu-ments into places of learning and reflectionabout the past, as well as valuable resourcesfor sustainable community developmentand intercultural and intergenerational dia-logue.

To that end, each of the main princi-ples deals with a theme in which in whichthe broader and more inclusive interpretiveactivity can and should be encouraged.

Principle 1: Access and Understand-ing suggests that the public discussion of asite’s significance “should be facilitated byeffective, sustainable Interpretation, involv-ing a wide range of associated communities,as well as visitor and stakeholder groups.”Access here refers to both intellectual andphysical access, highlighting the role ofinterpretation can play in offering a directconnection between the heritage resourceand the personal experiences and chal-lenges of the contemporary community.These include the provision of multilingualprograms (where appropriate and neces-sary), facilities for persons with physicaldisabilities, and respect for cultural sensitiv-ities (as in places of worship and othersacred places) where the need for public

interpretation must be balanced with thetraditional function and contemporary sig-nificance of the site.

Principle 2: Information Sourcessuggests that the informational content con-veyed at cultural heritage sites must “bebased on evidence gathered throughaccepted scientific and scholarly methodsas well as from living cultural traditions.” Incontrast to more traditional presentations ofsites that focus largely on the public com-munication of scholarly evaluations, theCharter urges that artistic, literary, andmemory-based interpretation be includedalongside the more strictly historical,archaeological, and scientific material. Italso stresses the importance of maintainingfull documentation of the sources fromwhich the various types of informationcome.

Principle 3: Context and Setting rec-ommends that the interpretation of culturalheritage sites should relate to their widersocial, cultural, historical, and environmen-tal contexts—in both an intellectual and aphysical sense. The selective focus on cer-tain periods of interest or historical actors,or the designation of a site as either culturalor natural, lessens its value as a means toappreciate its full significance as an elementin the contemporary landscape.

Principle 4: Authenticity, while rec-ognizing the difficulty and subjectivity ofthis term, nonetheless outlines certain stan-dards regarding the use of reconstructionsand advises against irreversible alterationsto the physical integrity of the site that areundertaken for the purposes of interpreta-tion alone. In addition, it acknowledges thatpotential danger that the classification of aplace as a “heritage site” may pose to its tra-ditional social functions.

Principle 5: Sustainability deals with

the potentially disruptive effects of interpre-tive technologies, facilities, and costs bothon the physical stability of the cultural her-itage site and its financial viability. Inresponse to the increasing reliance on elab-orate interpretation as an essential compo-nent of income-generating “heritage attrac-tions” (both public and private), the charterstresses the importance of rational planningrather than unrealistic expectations orunanalyzed side-effects of tourist develop-ment.

Principle 6: Inclusiveness seeks toensure that the interpretation of a culturalheritage site is not merely a carefully script-ed presentation prepared by outsiders, butshould “actively involve the participation ofassociated communities and other stake-holders.” Whether regarding the presenta-tion of a community’s heritage, the physicalplans for the site’s physical development, orthe economic opportunities for employ-ment and economic benefit by local resi-dents, an interpretation program must beseen as a community activity rather than analien imposition.

Principle 7: Research, Evaluation,and Training stresses that the “interpreta-tion of a cultural heritage site “should notbe considered to be completed with theestablishment of a specific interpretiveinfrastructure” but must be seen as adynamic, long-term activity that includecontinuous training, updating, and out-reach into the community—and to otherheritage sites around the world.

In sum, the ICOMOS–Ename Charterasserts that the raising of visitor attendancefigures or increasing visitor attendancealone should not be the only target or crite-rion of success in the interpretation of cul-tural heritage sites. The communicated—and reflected upon—significance of a site



must also serve a range of educational andsocial objectives for the benefit of the localcommunity. The underlying rationale for allof these recommendations is the achieve-ment of a basic and far-reaching interpretivetransformation: Not of a freshly excavatedor conserved site into a beautifully andentertainingly presented attraction—butrather into an active, dynamic cultural insti-tution within a living community.

The Future of the ICOMOS–EnameCharter

The charter text continues to benefitfrom continuing review and revision; aRevised Third Draft was compiled in thesummer of 2005 (see accompanying articlefor the complete text) and further updatesand information about the charter initiativecan be found at the charter website(www.enamecharter.org; Figure 1). The

intention now is to continue the cycles ofreviews and revision that will eventuallyproduce a Fourth Draft, more comprehen-

sively reflecting international consensus onthe guiding principles of heritage interpre-tation. This will be used as the basis tolaunch a more exhaustive global dialogueon interpretation that will engage ICOMOScommittees, individual members, and inter-ested scholars and professionals in moredynamic, interactive forums, such as nation-al, regional, and international workshops,conferences, and electronic discussiongroups.

There is no question that interpreta-tion has great potential for stimulating apublic interest in conservation. But it canonly do so when all of the potential con-servers—from scholars, to design consult-ants, to heritage administrators, to businesspeople, to community groups, to religiousorganizations, to neighbors and support-ers—even to a bored, unemployed 17-year-old with a can of spray paint—are meaning-fully involved in what is perceived as a com-munity effort and have reason to considerthe site not only “theirs,” but also an impor-tant part of their lives. Interpretation is atthe heart of conservation and heritage con-servation is a vital focus of collective mem-ory.

Of the making of books—and of cul-tural heritage charters—there may indeedbe no end. Yet the core aim of theICOMOS–Ename Charter is to ensure thatevery community’s interpretation of its cul-tural heritage sites is inclusive, authentic,sustainable, and—yes—an endless source ofknowledge, inspiration, and reflectionabout the past’s evocative, enigmatic, andalways enlightening material remains.



Figure 1. The home page of the Ename Charter.

Neil Silberman, Ename Center for Public Archaeology and Heritage Presentation,Abdijstraat 13–15, B-9700 Oudenaarde, Belgium; [email protected]

ICOMOS–Ename Charter for the Interpretation ofCultural Heritage Sites

Revised Third Draft, 5 July 2005

PreambleJust as the Venice Charter established the principle that the protection of the extant fab-

ric of a cultural heritage site is essential to its conservation, it is now equally acknowledgedthat Interpretation1 of the meaning of sites is an integral part of the conservation process andfundamental to positive conservation outcomes.

A significant number of charters, principles, and guidelines, including the ICOMOSCharter for the Protection and Management of the Archaeological Heritage (1990), the NaraDocument on Authenticity (1994), the Burra Charter (1999), the ICOMOS InternationalCharter on Cultural Tourism (1999), and the Principles for the Conservation of HeritageSites in China (2002), have emphasized the fundamental role of sensitive and effective inter-pretation in heritage conservation.

The aim of this Charter is to define the basic objectives and principles of site interpreta-tion in relation to authenticity, intellectual integrity, social responsibility, and respect for cul-tural significance and context. It recognizes that the interpretation of cultural heritage sitescan be contentious and should acknowledge conflicting perspectives, and their open andhonest recognition can significantly enrich contemporary reflections about the significanceof heritage.

Although the objectives and principles of this Charter may equally apply to off-site andonline interpretation, its main focus is interpretation at, or in the immediate vicinity of cul-tural heritage sites.

The Charter seeks to encourage a wide public appreciation of cultural heritage sites asplaces and sources of learning and reflection about the past, as well as valuable resources forsustainable community development and intercultural and intergenerational dialogue.

ObjectivesThis charter seeks to establish principles of cultural heritage interpretation in order to:

• Facilitate understanding and appreciation of cultural heritage sites and foster publicawareness of the need for their conservation. The effective interpretation of heritagesites across the world can be an important medium for intercultural and intergenera-tional exchange and mutual understanding.

• Communicate the meaning of cultural heritage sites through careful, documented


recognition of their significance, including their tangible and intangible values, naturaland cultural setting, social context, and physical fabric.

• Respect the authenticity of cultural heritage sites, by protecting their natural and cul-tural values and significant fabric from the adverse impact of physical alterations orintrusive interpretive infrastructure.

• Contribute to the sustainable conservation of cultural heritage sites, through effectivefinancial planning and/or the encouragement of economic activities that safeguard con-servation efforts, enhance the quality of life of the host community, and ensure long-termmaintenance and updating of the interpretive infrastructure.

• Ensure inclusiveness in the interpretation of cultural heritage sites, by fostering theproductive involvement of all stakeholders and associated communities in the develop-ment and implementation of interpretive programs.

• Develop technical and professional standards for heritage interpretation, includingtechnologies, research, and training. These standards must be appropriate and sustain-able in their social contexts.

PrinciplesPrinciple 1: Access and Understanding. The appreciation of cultural heritage sites is auniversal right.2 The public discussion of their significance should be facilitated by effective,sustainable Interpretation, involving a wide range of associated communities, as well as vis-itor and stakeholder groups.

• 1.1 The primary purpose of interpretation should be to communicate the values and rangeof meanings of cultural heritage sites. Effective interpretation should enhance experi-ence, increase public respect and understanding of the significance of the sites, andshould also communicate the importance of conservation.

• 1.2 Interpretation should aim to encourage individuals and communities to reflect on theirown perceptions of the site and their relationship to it. Effective interpretation shouldestablish an emotional connection to the site and provide insights—as well as facts. Itshould seek to stimulate further interest and learning.

• 1.3 Interpretation should be considered an integral part of the conservation process. Itshould explain the specific conservation problems encountered at the site, as a means ofenhancing public awareness of the threats to the site’s physical integrity.

• 1.4 Interpretation is a dynamic, ongoing activity, in which the possibility of multiple per-spectives should not be excluded. All associated communities and stakeholders shouldhave an opportunity to be involved in the development of heritage interpretation pro-grams as both their right and their responsibility.

• 1.5 Interpretation programs should identify and assess their audiences demographicallyand culturally. Every effort should be made to ensure that heritage interpretation meetsthe needs of its varied audiences and is accessible to a wide public, in all its diversity,including persons with disabilities.

• 1.6 The diversity of language among visitors and associated communities connected witha heritage site should be reflected in the interpretive infrastructure.



• 1.7 Physical access and on-site interpretation of a cultural heritage site may be restrictedin some cases, due to cultural sensitivities, conservation issues, or safety concerns. Inthose cases, interpretation should be provided off-site or by other means such as publi-cations, digital media, videos, or internet websites. It is acknowledged that in somecases, an associated community may prefer not to have a site publicly interpreted.

Principle 2: Information Sources. The Interpretation of heritage sites must be based on evi-dence gathered through accepted scientific and scholarly methods as well as from living cultur-al traditions.

• 2.1 Interpretation should show the range of oral and written information, materialremains, traditions, and meanings attributed to a site. It should also clearly identify thesources of this information.

• 2.2 Interpretation should be based on a well-researched, multidisciplinary study of the siteand its surroundings, but should acknowledge that meaningful interpretation also nec-essarily includes conjecture, hypotheses, and philosophical reflection.

• 2.3 Visual reconstructions, whether by artists, conservation experts, or computer model,should be based upon detailed and systematic analysis of environmental, archaeologi-cal, architectural, and historical data, including analysis of building materials, structuralengineering criteria, written, oral and iconographic sources, and photography. However,such visual renderings remain hypothetical images and should be identified as such.

• 2.4 At cultural heritage sites where traditional storytelling or memories of historical par-ticipants provide an important source of information about the significance of the site,interpretive programs should incorporate these oral testimonies—either indirectly,through the facilities of the interpretive infrastructure, or directly, through the active par-ticipation of members of the associated communities as on-site interpreters.

• 2.5 Interpretation activities and the research and information sources on which they arebased should be documented and archived for future reference and reflection.

Principle 3: Context and Setting. The Interpretation of cultural heritage sites should relateto their wider social, cultural, historical, and natural contexts and settings.

• 3.1 Interpretation should explore the significance of a site in its multi-faceted historical,social, political, spiritual, and artistic contexts. It should consider all aspects of the site’scultural and environmental significance.

• 3.2 The contributions of all periods to the significance of a site should be respected.Although particular eras and themes may be highlighted, all periods of the site’s histo-ry as well as its contemporary context and significance should be considered in theinterpretation process.

• 3.3 Interpretation should also take into account the cultural contributions of all commu-nities associated with the site, including minority groups.

• 3.4 The surrounding landscape, natural environment, and geographical setting are all inte-gral parts of a site’s historical and cultural significance, and, as such, should be taken



into account in its interpretation.• 3.5 Intangible elements of a site’s heritage such as cultural and spiritual traditions, stories,

music, dance, theater, literature, visual arts, personal customs and cuisine should benoted and included in its interpretation.

• 3.6 The cross-cultural significance of heritage sites, as well as co-existing or contestedviewpoints, should become part of the interpretation, providing outside visitors as wellas local residents and associated communities with a sense of personal connection.

Principle 4: Authenticity. The Interpretation of cultural heritage sites must respect theirauthenticity, in the spirit of the Nara Document (1994).3

• 4.1 Interpretation should contribute to the conservation of the authenticity of a culturalheritage site by communicating its significance without adversely impacting its culturalvalues or having recourse to irreversible alteration of its fabric or the installation of irre-versible interpretive infrastructure. Physical reconstruction that permanently changesthe character of the site should not be undertaken for the purpose of interpretationalone.

• 4.2 The public interpretation of a cultural heritage site should always clearly distinguishand date the successive phases and influences in its evolution, and clearly identify addi-tional interpretive interventions.

• 4.3 Authenticity is a concern relevant to human communities as well as material remains.The design of a heritage interpretation program should respect and safeguard the tradi-tional social functions of the site and the cultural practices and dignity of local residentsand associated communities. It should also provide an opportunity for wider discussionof shared and conflicting heritage values.

Principle 5: Sustainability. The interpretive plan for a cultural heritage site must be sensi-tive to its natural and cultural environment. Social, financial and environmental sustain-ability in the long term must be among the central goals.

• 5.1 The development and implementation of interpretive programs must be an integralpart of the overall management and planning process for a cultural heritage site. Thepotential effect of interpretive infrastructure and visitor numbers on the cultural value,physical characteristics, integrity, and natural environment of the site must be fully con-sidered in heritage impact assessment studies.

• 5.2 A wide range of interpretive strategies should be discussed early in the site planningprocess, to assess their cultural appropriateness as well as their economic and technicalfeasibility. The scale, expense and technology of interpretive programs must be appro-priate to the location and available facilities.

• 5.3 All technical or technological elements in a site’s interpretive infrastructure should beappropriate for local standards and resources. They should be designed and construct-ed in a manner that will ensure effective and regular maintenance.

• 5.4 All visible interpretive programs and infrastructure (such as kiosks, walking paths, and



information panels) must be sensitive to the character, the setting and the cultural andnatural significance of the site, while remaining easily identifiable. The light and soundfrom concerts, dramatic performances, screens and speakers must be restricted to theirimmediate area, so as not to affect adversely the surroundings or disturb nearby resi-dents.

Principle 6: Inclusiveness. The Interpretation of cultural heritage sites must activelyinvolve the participation of associated communities and other stakeholders.

• 6.1 The efforts and interests of associated communities, property owners, governmentalauthorities, site managers, scholars, tourism operators, private investors, employees, andvolunteers should be integrated into the development of interpretive programs.

• 6.2 Interpretation should serve a wide range of educational and cultural objectives. Thesuccess of an interpretive program should not be judged solely on the basis of visitorattendance figures or revenue.

• 6.3 The traditional rights, responsibilities, and interests of the host community, propertyowners, and associated communities should be respected. These groups should be con-sulted and have a major role in the planning process of the interpretive program and inits subsequent development.

• 6.4 Interpretation activities and subsequent plans for expansion or revision of the inter-pretive program should be open for public comment and involvement. It is the right andresponsibility of all to make their opinions and perspectives known.

• 6.5 Interpretive activities should aim to provide equitable economic, social, and culturalbenefits to the host community at all levels, through education, training, and the creationof economic opportunities. To that end, the training and employment of site interpretersfrom the host community should be encouraged.

• 6.6 Because the question of intellectual property and traditional cultural rights is especial-ly relevant to the interpretation process and its expression in various communicationmedia (such as on-site multimedia presentations, digital media, and printed materials),legal ownership and right to use images, texts, and other interpretive materials shouldbe taken into account in the planning process.

Principle 7: Research, Evaluation and Training. The Interpretation of a cultural heritagesite is an ongoing, evolving process of explanation and understanding that includes continu-ing research, training, and evaluation.

• 7.1 The interpretation of a cultural heritage site should not be considered to be complet-ed with the establishment of a specific interpretive infrastructure. Continuing researchand consultation are important to furthering the understanding and appreciation of asite’s significance and should be integral elements in every heritage interpretation pro-gram.

• 7.2 The interpretive program and infrastructure should be designed and constructed in away that ensures periodic content revision and/or expansion.



• 7.3 Interpretation programs and their physical impact on a site should be continuouslymonitored and evaluated, and periodic changes made on the basis of both scientific andscholarly analysis and public feedback. Visitors and members of associated communi-ties as well as heritage professionals should be involved in this evaluation process.

• 7.4 Every interpretation program should be seen as an educational resource and its designshould take into account its possible use in school curricula, communications mediaincluding the internet, special activities, events, and seasonal volunteer involvement.

• 7.5 The training of qualified professionals in the specialized fields of heritage interpreta-tion, such as conservation, content creation, management, technology, guiding, and edu-cation, is a crucial objective. In addition, basic academic conservation programs shouldinclude a component on interpretation in their courses of study.

• 7.6 On-site training programs and courses should be developed with the objective ofupdating and informing heritage and interpretation staff of all levels and associated andhost communities of recent developments and innovations in the field.

• 7.7 International cooperation is essential to developing and maintaining standards ininterpretation methods and technologies. To that end, international conferences, work-shops and exchanges of professional staff should be encouraged. These will provide anopportunity for the regular sharing of information about the diversity of interpretiveapproaches and experiences in various regions and cultures.

Endnotes1. For the purpose of the present Charter, Interpretation is considered to be the publicexplanation or discussion of a cultural heritage site, encompassing its full significance, mul-tiple meanings and values. Interpretive infrastructure refers to all physical installations, pub-lications (guidebooks, videotapes, digital applications, etc,) and communications mediadevised for the purposes of interpretation, as well as the personnel assigned to this task.2. As established in the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948), itis the right of all people to “participate freely in the cultural life of the community.” TheICOMOS Stockholm Declaration (1998) further notes that “the right to cultural heritage isan integral part of human rights” and that this right “carries duties and responsibilities forindividuals and communities as well as for institutions and states.”3. See http://whc.unesco.org/archive/nara94.htm.



Newer categories of heritage sitesrely heavily on interpretation. It should beno secret that the more obscure, weak, orambiguous the value of a heritage site, thegreater the need for its interpretation.There was a time when most of the world’sinventory of heritage sites needed little orno interpretation: the Pyramids, the SistineChapel, the Taj Mahal, the great cathedrals,the U.S. Capitol. They lived for many yearswith little or no interpretation, and theirprestige was undiminished. For these iconicsites, their interpretation was tacit in theirmere existence, and everyone understoodthat. Nonetheless, we cannot deny thatinterpretation has always been useful; it isthe threshold to connoisseurship and to thedeeper appreciation for the significance of aplace, but basically, interpretation for these

great iconic sites was secondary or supple-mental.

As the categories of heritage haveexpanded over the past 40 years, we havemoved to accept places on our registrieswhose associations with events or trendsare neither well known nor understood, andwhose visual subtlety, aesthetic impact, andcommonality of appearance can say nothingabout why a place classifies as heritage.These places need an explanation, or inter-pretation. Let us recall the much-disputedand misunderstood designation of the land-fill in Fresno, California, as a national his-toric landmark a couple of years ago. Thevalues of the site were never sufficiently wellinterpreted to the general public. As aresult, the National Register and the nation-al historic landmark program were publicly


Some Background Musings on the Need for anICOMOS–Ename Charter for the Interpretation ofCultural Heritage Sites

Gustavo Araoz

Ed. note: A version of this paper was originally presented at The Alliance of Natural HeritageAreas 2nd International Heritage Development Conference, Nashville, Tennessee, June 2005.

Interpretation of a heritage site much is more that just telling a story to the visitors andthe public. Interpretation is the process and the tools through which the full significance andvalues attributed to a place are transmitted to the public, and in that sense, they become thejustification for its preservation. For forty years, ICOMOS and the international heritagecommunity have managed to get by without any detailed guidance on how to articulate asite’s significance to the general public, or in other words, how to interpret a heritage site.Why suddenly now does ICOMOS feel that we need a new doctrinal document, a new setof ethical principles for the interpretation of sites? I might venture four interconnected rea-sons for your consideration and discussion.

ridiculed for elevating a landfill to heritagestatus. The interpretation that the publicdid not hear is that this site was judged byexperts to be of extraordinary significanceas a technical victory in regenerating anawful place, and as a symbol of the ability ofa community to deal successfully with a bigenvironmental problem.

The public demands and expects thetheme park experience. The theme parkexperience has had a profound effect on theway that heritage sites are presented andinterpreted to the public. This is nothingnew, because some adhere to the idea thatthe heritage community invented the themepark to begin with: in Williamsburg in theUnited States, and in the outdoor architec-tural museums of Scandinavia. This strangecreature that sprang from our midst is nowa huge competitor with the heritage indus-try in attracting visitors, with perhaps themost ironic example of all being BuschGardens sapping the lifeblood out of thevery ancestor that provided the DNA for itsown existence: nearby Colonial Williams-burg. This reminds me of the Spanishproverb that warns against breeding crows,because they will pluck your eyes. As themeparks vie with heritage sites in ever-moreferocious competition to capture ournation’s leisure time, an alarming number ofheritage sites have adopted the ways of massentertainment to meet the expectations ofthe average visitor. This has inherent dan-gers, since to entertain effectively, entertain-ment must avoid uncomfortable topics andlimit mental challenges so as not to disturbvisitors who are on automatic pilot.

The development of modern inter-pretation technologies is accelerating.Closely associated to the theme park syn-drome is the application of modern tech-nologies to interpretation. While it is obvi-

ous that virtual realities can be a great toolto interpret a heritage site with minimalimpact on its historic fabric, they can beginto render the site itself secondary to the vir-tual experience, especially as the sensorialstimulation of virtual realities continues toincrease. In his Travels into Hyper Reality,the Italian author and semiotist UmbertoEco pointed out how the fake reality riverjungle cruise in Disneyland is better thanactually going down the real Nile. In Dis-neyland you are guaranteed that the hippowill always yawn as you sail by, while in thereal Nile, the hippos may be elsewhere theday you are there. When fake reality or vir-tual reality becomes more satisfying than“real reality,” a heritage site may be viewedas disposable, and its conservation option-al.

Interpretation as entertainment alsotends towards heavy-handed techniquesthat are meant to capture and retain visitorswith low attention spans for as long as pos-sible. The technology, infrastructure, andhardware for such presentations have disfig-ured many heritage sites, diminished thequality of the visit, and often become moreimportant than the site itself. When inter-pretation relies more on contrived designs,awesome reconstructions, and elaborateprograms than on the extant historical evi-dence, the limits of interpretive proprietyhave been exceeded.

Heritage has undergone a process ofdemocratization. In an increasingly opensociety, heritage sites have been appropriat-ed by multiple stakeholder groups, all ofthem demanding that their story be heard.At one time, not too long ago, the signifi-cance of our heritage sites was largely vali-dated by the whole of society, or, at the veryleast, the uniform acceptance of its univer-salized value went largely unquestioned.



The Ename Charter addresses the ethics ofthis process head on. But I, personally, donot know where this approach will take us.If we are to be truly fair and democratic,where are the limits for allowing all self-defined stakeholders to have their say in theprocess of interpretation? Today the NewAge people are given access to ChacoCanyon, and the neo-Druids to Stone-henge. Where do we stop? Or do we stop atall? Can we or should we expect the KuKlux Klan to have their say in the MartinLuther King memorial sites? Or the BritishRoyal Family at Independence Hall inPhiladelphia to explain why we would bebetter off today as Crown Colonies? Or theNative Americans in Plymouth Rock to tellus how the advent of Europeans led togenocide? Or the protestants in VaticanCity to tell us of the Catholic Church’sabuse of temporal powers? Or the neo-Nazis at Auschwitz? The Japanese in PearlHarbor? Pentagon representatives in Hiro-shima? The Mexicans at the Alamo? Theseare questions that demand an answer.

There was a time when each heritagesite had an associated significance that wasdeeply rooted in the public mind, or at leastin certain sectors of the public mind. Therewas little doubt about what made a placevaluable to society. Whatever interpretationwas provided used those well-known sto-ries and often searched for related new onessimply to increase visitors’ awareness andappreciation of the official values attributedto the site.

Today, however, this is often reversed:instead of a site with an attached story orstories, there are many stories in search of aheritage site that will validate the ideas,beliefs, or interpretations of history that arebehind them. This is what makes the

process of identifying, registering, and evenpreserving a site eminently political. Andthe great danger with this is that behind theinterpretation of these stories in search of asite there is a political or an ideologicalagenda waiting to be proselytized.

This is nothing new. What is new is thelevel of intensity with which sites are beingidentified as bridges to political power.From Ruskin using heritage to reverse theeffects of the industrial revolution, toViollet-le-Duc trying to sell the superiorityof French medieval expression, or to AnnPamela Cunningham using Mount Vernonto foster the deification of GeorgeWashington and the ideas he was thought tostand for, heritage has always been a politi-cal tool to advance public adherence to cer-tain ideals, beliefs, and even myths.Heritage sites always mean something muchbigger than their mere architectural accom-plishments. In principle, the inscription of asite in the official registers and inventoriesmeans that enough people are buying into itsuch that they agree on the values attributedto the place and are willing to extend to it allthe legal benefits inherent in official protec-tion. Correspondingly, many traditionallydisenfranchised minority groups feel theneed to identify heritage sites and secure forthem official recognition for self-validationand public recognition of their right to be aplayer in the public arena. To do this, theyhave to link their arguments to a heritagesite.

The problem is that precisely becausethey have been disenfranchised, many ofthese groups never had or were never giventhe opportunity to shape and mark thelandscape in a way that we could easilyidentify as traditional heritage. To a certaindegree, this is why the concept of heritage



has had to expand to cultural landscapes, tonatural places with sacred meanings, and toplaces where historic events of significanceonly to some disenfranchised group tookplace. To the general public, these heritagesites are “new” in the sense that they havenavigated through history anonymouslyand out of the public consciousness, with-out any patrimonial recognition, at timeseven by the very group that now claims it. Itis only when a specific or emerging vision ofhistory needs validation, and a solid con-nection is made between a place and a givenmessage, that suddenly it metamorphosesinto heritage. Then the message attributedto the site needs to be disseminated broad-ly—interpreted—to gather sufficient sup-port for its public recognition.

Such sites present a challenge inas-much as once the match between messageand site is achieved, its significance is at riskof being limited to the single value of theone group that identified it, which wouldeasily convert interpretation into propagan-da, be it religious, political, or social. This iswhy the Ename Charter insists that thewhole process of identification, recogni-tion, and preservation form part of the inter-pretive program of a site. Simple decencyand honesty demand that the public knowwho values the site and why.

These are just some of the pitfalls thatcan befall us in the process of interpreta-tion. There are many others, of course,which the Ename Charter addresses, suchas interpretive technology so advanced thatit cannot be properly maintained; interpre-tative programs that are beyond the site’sbudget; and even the old-fashioned exhibitdesign. I urge you to read the charter andthink about it with care. Over the next threeyears, US/ICOMOS, in partnership withthe Ename Center in Belgium, will continueto discuss and refine it. The members ofICOMOS will be given opportunities forworkshops and participation in the draftingof the final texts. At present, we foresee theadoption of a final text on interpretation atour general assembly in Quebec in 2008.

To conclude, we can summarize theintent of the Ename Charter as fourfold:one, to protect the physical integrity andauthenticity of heritage sites; second, toensure that all aspects of a site’s significanceare impartially made known to visitors;third, to prevent its significance from beingused for propagandistic aims; and lastly, toensure an ethical, professional approach toheritage interpretation. If these four princi-ples were clear in our minds, we might notneed the Ename Charter.



Gustavo Araoz, US/ICOMOS (U.S. National Committee of the International Council onMonuments and Sites), 401 F Street NW, Suite 331, Washington, D.C. 20001;[email protected]

For the last four years we have workedat Melrose and the other plantations ofMarie-Thérèse and her family as part of acollaborative archaeological and archivalproject between Northwestern StateUniversity of Louisiana (NSU) andUniversity College London (UCL). Duringthese years we have lived very much in theshadow of Coincoin’s legend (for the story

of the Maison de Marie-Thérèse, seeMacDonald, Morgan, and Handley 2002/2003; MacDonald, Morgan, and Handley,in press; MacDonald et al., in press). Littleby little our research has unraveled the linksbetween traditional narratives and certain-ties about the history of these properties,forcing us, as academics, to refine ourunderstanding of the plantation’s develop-


Economics and Authenticity:A Collision of Interpretations inCane River National Heritage Area, Louisiana

David W. Morgan, Kevin C. MacDonald, and Fiona J. L. Handley

Ed. note: A version of this paper was originally presented at The Alliance of Natural HeritageAreas 2nd International Heritage Development Conference, Nashville, Tennessee, June 2005.

IntroductionMelrose Plantation, a United States national historic landmark, is a focal point for culturaltourism in northern and central Louisiana (Figure 1). It is celebrated as a pre-LouisianaPurchase property, for the origins of Melrose may go back as far as 1796. In that year, legendhas it that a freed slave of African descent named Marie-Thérèse Coincoin acquired the landgrant for this property on behalf of her son, Louis Metoyer, who was then still a slave (Millsand Mills 1973:33–59). Louis Metoyer was a Creole of Color, which in central Louisianarefers to a distinct group of people of mixed European, Native American, and African ances-try. Cane River is home to the descendents of this original colonial-era community, and theCane River Creoles, as they call themselves, are a vibrant group of people who have experi-enced a strong cultural revitalization over the last decade. In the Cane River region, Marie-Thérèse herself is considered a founding figure of exceptional—almost mythic—importance,and most members of the Creole community trace their genealogical ties back to Marie-Thérèse and her ten children by the Frenchman, Jean Claude Thomas Pierre Metoyer.Marie-Thérèse’s prominence in popular culture is due in no small part to the fact that theirdescendants became one of the South’s wealthiest antebellum families of African descent(Louisiana State Museum 2003). Her more global importance has been highlighted recent-ly by the attention given Cane River and Marie-Thérèse by Oprah Winfrey and two contem-porary novelists (Tademy 2001; Mills 2003).

ment. This has thrust us into a position wedid not anticipate, in which our findings aresometimes welcomed, but sometimes areseen as contesting, contradicting, or deny-ing accepted narrative “truths.”

There are three main parties who wishto stake a claim in the way in which Marie-Thérèse’s story is told. One, obviously, arethe individuals who self-identify as CaneRiver Creoles. A second party is theAssociation for the Preservation of HistoricNatchitoches (APHN), a not-for-profitpreservation group composed mostly ofaffluent Anglo women who currently incor-porate Marie-Thérèse and Creole heritageinto their interpretation of Melrose Planta-tion. Lastly, there are the outside academics,represented by us, as well as members of theNational Park Service’s Historic AmericanBuildings Survey program and, over theyears, an assortment of other social scien-tists.

In this paper we attempt to show howthese three corporate voices come togetherto relate the tale of the Cane River Creoles.Sometimes the voices are harmonious,

sometimes they are discordant. As such ournegotiations over the legend of Marie-Thérèse provide an interesting case studywith which to illustrate the tenets of thethird draft of the proposed Ename Charterfor the Interpretation of Cultural HeritageSites (see Silberman, this volume). Othersimilar charters have mentioned the needfor sensitive, effective interpretation, but theEname Charter, drafted under the auspicesof ICOMOS, the International Council onMonuments and Sites, attempts to “definethe basic objectives and principles of siteinterpretation in relation to authenticity,intellectual integrity, social responsibility,and respect for cultural significance andcontext” (ECPAHP 2005). It is particularlyappropriate here, for it begins with therecognition that interpretation can be con-tentious and should acknowledge conflict-ing perspectives. As an international stan-dard for all types of heritage sites, the char-ter is necessarily broad, but there are threeprinciples that are especially appropriate tothe case we present, because together theyaddress the need for interpretation through



Figure 1. Locations of sites discussed in thetext. Map by David Morgan.

scholarly methods and through living cul-tural traditions, the need for authenticity,and the need for fiscal sustainability.

APHN’s Melrose NarrativeMelrose Plantation is the only publicly

accessible cultural heritage site at which thehistory of Cane River Creoles is currentlypresented to the public. The APHN hasowned the historic core of the plantationand acted as its steward for 34 years. Thesociety’s members obviously govern in alarge measure how the tale of Marie-Thérèse and her family is interpreted there.Melrose, with its grand oaks and architec-ture, is certainly capable of attractingtourists for aesthetic reasons alone (Figure2). The real marketing and advertisingefforts of the APHN, however, are to conveyMelrose as embodying the tale of threeinfluential women: Marie-Thérèse Coin-coin, Carmelite “Cammie” Henry, (the

Anglo owner responsible for Melrose’s ren-aissance in the early twentieth century), andClementine Hunter (the celebrated African-American artist who lived and worked atMelrose during the Cammie Henry era).The APHN’s clear focus on strong-mind-ed, independent women, two of whom wereAfrican American, is unusual, if not unique,in historic house interpretation in thesouthern U.S., and is an extremely impor-tant and valid interpretive approach.

The interpretive tour explaining thesewomen’s histories is based around five key“original” buildings. Three are of particularimportance because they have been associ-ated directly with the Marie-Thérèse leg-end:

• Yucca House. It is presented as beingbuilt around 1796, and legend has itthat this was the original main house,built and lived in by Marie-Thérèse



Figure 2. Main house at Melrose Plantation. Photo by Jack Boucher, National Park Service, Historic American Buildings Survey.

(Figure 3).• Africa House. It is also presented as

being built around 1796 as a grainstore, or, according to some accounts, aslave jail built in a Congolese style byMarie-Thérèse (Figure 4).

• Ghana House. A third supposedlyoriginal 1796 structure, this smallcabin is reported to have been built inan architectural style reflecting Marie-Thérèse’s African heritage (Figure 5).

The story of Marie-Thérèse is famousin Cane River country, and the APHN usesit to their advantage. For instance theMelrose Plantation tourist brochure (2002)proclaims, “The story of romantic MelrosePlantation begins with the legend of MarieThérése Coincoin.” It is accurate advertis-ing, for so too does a visitor’s trip to theplantation. Special tour groups are some-times greeted by Betty Metoyer, a descen-dent of Marie-Thérèse. Metoyer typicallyawaits her tour groups from the upstairsporch of the main house, dressed in period

costume, and from her dramatic perchdelivers the story of Marie-Thérèse and theplantation’s founding; she then sweepsdownstairs and across the lawn to com-mence the heart of the tour at Yucca andAfrica houses.

As another example, the APHN web-site’s main page leads visitors to twotourism sites, one of which is Melrose. Eachheritage site is linked to a text blurb intend-ed to draw a reader into a closer inspection,and Melrose’s lure is telling:

“According to the tradition preservedby her descendants, Marie ThereseCoincoin was the recipient of the grantof land known as Melrose Plantation.”

The legend of Marie Therese Coin-coin is not just the story of a womanbut the story of a family grounded inAfrican tradition, mellowed by Frenchculture, this family developed in thebriefest span of years into one of theunique societies in American history,a culture so distinct, so close-knit, thatthey have always termed themselves



Figure 3. Yucca House at Melrose Plantation. Photo by Jack Boucher, National Park Service, Historic American Buildings Survey.



Figure 4. Africa House at Melrose Plantation. Photo by Philip Gould, reproduced with his permission and courtesy of the CaneRiver National Heritage Area.

Figure 5. Ghana House at Melrose Plantation. Photo by Jack Boucher, National Park Service, Historic American Buildings Survey.

“The People.” According to legend, itwas here that the story began ....

By choosing and italicizing a quotationfrom the author François Mignon, whomwe discuss below, and invoking the word“legend” twice in their explanatory text, theAPHN brochure exploits the allure of theMarie-Thérèse mythos, while attempting toreinforce it using documented history. But,how academically reliable are the accountsthey have chosen to use?

APHN and Melrose’s link to Marie-Thérèse

Much of the legend of Marie-Thérèsetold by the APHN at Melrose grew fromCammie Henry and the artists’ colony thatshe created around her in the early 1900s(Figure 6). It was one of the members of theHenry community, the self-styled French-man François Mignon (Figure 7), who didthe most to embroider and popularize thetale of Marie-Thérèse, first as writer of aregionally syndicated column, “The CaneRiver Memo” (1961–1963) and then asauthor of a book on the topic (1972). Heinvented the name Yucca for the earliestplantation at the property, a name alsoapplied to what is supposedly the originalplantation home, and claimed that Marie-Thérèse, a free slave from the Congo,owned Yucca plantation from 1743 on-wards and built Yucca and Africa House in1750 (Mignon 1972:1–2). Mignon (1972:1–2) stated that Louis Metoyer inheritedYucca from his mother, and that Louis’ sonbuilt the main house in 1833, at whichpoint Yucca House was turned into a home“for indigent slaves.” Mignon (1972:5,30–31) also claimed that the two-storyAfrica House was “a replica of tribal houseson the Congo river in Africa” and that it

served simultaneously as both a jail forCoincoin’s recalcitrant slaves and as a store-room.

Local folk historian Louis Nardiniscornfully disputed Mignon’s claims thatsame year. Nardini (1972) asserted thatCoincoin never owned Melrose; did notbuild Yucca, Africa, or Ghana houses; andlived in her own plantation at Cedar Benduntil at least 1816. That her son alone wasinvolved with the construction of Yucca—and much later than had previously beenbelieved—became a point of heated debate,particularly as the dialogue took place in thepages of the local newspaper.



Figure 6. Folklorist Lyle Saxon and Cammie Henry at MelrosePlantation. Cammie G. Henry Research Center Collections,Lyle Saxon Album, #014pl., Northwestern State University,Louisiana.

The next year, amid growing contro-versy, the APHN hired the historians GaryMills and Elizabeth Mills to write a properaccount of the origins of Melrose plantation(1973). It later developed into the book TheForgotten People (Mills 1977) that nowdefines the conventional story of Melrose’sorigins. The Mills, with solid archival evi-dence, laid aside Mignon’s claim for the1750 establishment of the plantation. Theyfocused instead on a Melrose property dis-pute that raged in 1806–1807. Louis Met-oyer, Marie-Thérèse’s son, filed claim towhat is now Melrose in 1806. SylvestreBossier, the original 1789 grantee, contest-ed the claim. Louis Metoyer rebutted thatBossier’s right to the land had lapsed, sincehe had not made the required land improve-ments, and that the land had then beendeeded to him in 1796. Louis ultimatelywon. In hindsight the Mills saw one flaw inLouis Metoyer’s story: he was legally a slaveuntil May 1802, and slaves could not bedeeded land. To bridge this logical gap, theMills (1973:41) echoed Mignon by assert-

ing that Marie-Thérèse acquired the land in1796 for her son and settled in YuccaHouse as the plantation matriarch.

Cane River Creoles and Melrose’s linkto Marie-Thérèse

The story is intriguing, and relativelyuncomplicated, when told from only theAPHN’s perspective. The issue of tellingthe Marie-Thérèse tale at Melrose gets morecomplex when one listens to the secondvoice: that of the Cane River Creoles them-selves. For many years the Creoles on CaneRiver were aware of the narrative related atMelrose, but were content to shrug it off as“somebody else trying to tell what wealready know” (J. Colson, director, CreoleHeritage Center, personal communication,17 May 2005). As the Cane River Creolesbecame more invested in revitalization, theybegan to ask questions. Why should thelargely Anglo members of the APHN telltheir version of our story for the benefit oftheir organization? More to the point, whyare they telling our story inaccurately? Thatquery was the most problematic, for mostCreoles believe that Marie-Thérèse was notas firmly connected to Melrose as theAPHN claims. The Creoles, moreover,knew exactly where on the landscapeMarie-Thérèse’s story should be situated: aprivate residence several miles upriver.

According to the Cane River Creoles,what remains of Marie-Thérèse’s home is apink-painted, cypress-clad residence on apiece of property encompassing a portionof the 68-acre land grant given to Marie-Thérèse in 1786, when her long-term rela-tionship with Jean Claude Thomas PierreMetoyer ended (Figure 8). For many years itwas generally accepted by the Creoles thatthe extant house on this property (known asthe Coincoin-Prudhomme House) was the



Figure 7. François Mignon. Cammie G. Henry Research CenterCollections, Mignon Collection, #105-22, Northwestern StateUniversity, Louisiana.

original and only dwelling associated withMarie-Thérèse (Shaw 1983:6). This claimactually had more documentary backingthan the Mills’ Melrose claim, as there is atax map of 1794 that depicts the “maison deMarie-Thérèse negresse libre,” which isshown as occupying almost the exact spotas the standing structure. On the basis ofthe map and the discovery of 1700s Frenchpottery in the home owner’s flowerbed, thestructure was placed on the NationalRegister as the home of Marie-Thérèse andsubsequently featured in African AmericanHistoric Places (Savage 1994).

As far as the Creoles were concerned,the location of Marie-Thérèse’s home wasknown to them, it was not Melrose, and thedebate thus centered on issues of culturalappropriation. Who has the right to tell thisstory? They also began turning their atten-tion to the dilemma of using this house—well-known among the Creoles—as a vehi-

cle for reclaiming the Marie-Thérèse story.One possible solution a member of theCreole community broached with us was topossibly rehabilitate the structure into a bedand breakfast into which a museum displaycould be incorporated.

The academic voice on MelroseAt this point let us introduce the third

perspective on Creole heritage sites: theacademics’. Since 2001 we have activelybeen re-examining the archival documents,oral traditions, and material culture atMelrose Plantation and the Coincoin-Prudhomme property in hopes of learningabout the material culture process of cre-olization. Our work has particularly soughtto elucidate the role Africans and NativeAmericans played in the development ofCane River during the colonial and antebel-lum periods.

Turning first to Melrose, we found the



Figure 8. The Coincoin-Prudhomme House on the Whittington Archaeological Site (16NA591). Photo by David Morgan.

claims of APHN to be overstated, to say theleast. The Millses’ hypothesis that Marie-Thérèse founded and managed the planta-tion at Yucca House did not make muchlogical sense since Bossier’s challenge to theland claim would have been directed atMarie-Thérèse, not her enslaved son, andthe specter of Louis’ legal rights as a slavewould never have been raised. Thus theassociation of Marie-Thérèse with Melroseis founded upon gaps in the documentaryrecord, rather than any actual written proofof her presence. Furthermore, as Nardini(1972) already indicated, the documentsthat do exist place Marie-Thérèse on herown plantation in 1816.

Other academics found little veracity inthe supporting myth that Ghana House andAfrica House are examples of architectureinspired by Marie-Thérèse’s African expe-rience. For one thing, it is uncertainwhether Marie-Thérèse was born in Lou-isiana or Africa. For another, the Africaninfluence on the houses is a notion that doesnot hold up under close scrutiny. GhanaHouse is a simple log cabin, like many oth-ers along Cane River in the nineteenth cen-tury, and several local informants have toldus that it was re-located from another prop-erty along the river by Cammie Henry in the1920s. More attention has been given toAfrica House. In a recent study of Creolebuilding practice, Edwards (2002:66) ar-gues persuasively that “nothing about thisbuilding can be directly related to Africantradition. The builders of Africa Houseemployed no customary African methodsor design principles, but rather those ofFrance.” He goes on to supply illustrationsof French farm structures closely resem-bling Africa House (see Figure 44 inEdwards 2002).

Our initial findings and Edwards’

architectural conclusions cast doubt onmany of the “factual” constructs placingMarie-Thérèse at Melrose as its matriarch.The archaeology we subsequently conduct-ed in tandem with our documentary workshed further light on the plantation’s enig-matic founding at Yucca House. Withoutgoing into the details, which are publishedelsewhere (MacDonald et al., in press), acirca 1810 or later initial occupation datefor Yucca House seems reasonable based onthe associated material culture. Louis couldnot have built this structure in 1796. As ifthis were not enough, the artifacts are sup-ported by three recently discovered surveydocuments held in the Louisiana StateLand Office (MacDonald et al., in press).These three show, without doubt, thatLouis’ dwelling in 1814 was not YuccaHouse, and it is probable that Yucca Househad not yet even been built, as it is un-marked and unreferenced on these maps.Indeed, Louis’ residence, which was usedas a reference mark, was not even on thesame side of the river as Yucca House istoday.

It is apparent that François Mignon,the local writer-in-residence at Melrose inthe mid-1900s, created the backbone of theincreasingly dubious Melrose legend. Theirony is that Mignon’s biggest myth was infact himself. Rather than being French, ashe intimated, Mignon was actually born inCortland, New York, as Frank VerNooyMineah (Cammie G. Henry Research Cen-ter 2004). Mineah, a long-term guest ofCammie Henry’s at the plantation, inventedMelrose as the point of origin for Creoleculture by associating it with the story ofMarie-Thérèse. Thus, by rewriting localhistory Mignon secured both the impor-tance of his adopted home and made him-self the indispensable gatekeeper of knowl-



edge about the Creoles and Melrose (Figure9). In short, Marie-Thérèse has becomefirmly associated with the story of MelrosePlantation’s origins on the basis of no posi-tive evidence and in the face of a significantamount of contrary evidence (MacDonald,Morgan, and Handley 2002/2003; Mac-Donald et al., in press).

The academic voice on the Coincoin-Prudhomme House

After exploring Melrose, we turned ourattention to the oral tradition of the CaneRiver Creoles, hoping it could lead us to theplace where Marie-Thérèse lived her life.The Cane River Creoles really did notobject to our findings at Melrose, because itstrengthened their own convictions. Thistime, however, our archaeology was onancestral turf, and by searching for trashdeposits and slave homes at the Whitting-

ton site (16NA591) we again unwittinglyentered into a debate on authenticity, espe-cially regarding the Coincoin-PrudhommeHouse that the archaeological site sur-rounds. Conventional wisdom about theCoincoin-Prudhomme House’s tie to theCreole ancestress was academically chal-lenged for the first time immediately priorto our initial fieldwork in 2001, when workby the Historic American Buildings Survey(HABS) of the National Park Service castdoubt on the age of the standing structure.The HABS team dated this Creole cottageto no earlier than the 1830s on the basis ofnail chronology and a few stylistic features(National Park Service 2001).

Details of our work are published else-where (MacDonald, Morgan, and Handley2002/2003; MacDonald et al., in press), sosuffice it to say that copious earth movingon our part and re-inspection of excavations



Figure 9. François Mignon in Yucca House at Melrose Plantation. Cammie G. Henry Research Center Collections, Mignon Collection,#105-21, Northwestern State University, Louisiana.

from the 1970s failed to yield artifacts asso-ciated with the late 1700s or even the firstdecade or two of the 1800s, Marie-Thérèse’s intensive plantation period, whenshe accumulated some 16 slaves. We ulti-mately began from scratch, georeferencedthe original 1794 map, and discovered thatthe extant house’s location and the locationof the maison shown on the map were off byabout 50 m. We redirected our investiga-tions and, sure enough, some 50 m away, wefound a cluster of artifacts typical of the late1700s, as well as sub-surface features: themissing maison de Marie-Thérèse.

Stepping back, it was apparent that ourwork and HABS’s severed the myth ofMarie-Thérèse from the Coincoin-Prudhomme House, placing the latter firm-ly in the mid-1800s and associating it with adifferent family line entirely. That we wenton to locate the vicinity where Marie-Thérèse’s house actually stood probablywas not much of a sop to the Cane RiverCreoles. Before our work they had some-thing to look at, something to fire the imag-ination. We left them with an empty hayfield owned, no less, by a non-Creole fami-ly.

Melrose and the draft Ename CharterLet us move now from the concrete to

the more abstract in order to examine howthis case study reflects key aspects of thedraft Ename Charter. A core theme of thecharter’s provisions is how to ensure theauthenticity of interpretation, when nation-alism, economics, power dynamics, author-ity roles, and competing epistemologies alldetermine what we perceive and interpret as“true” and “accurate,” a conundrum dis-cussed in many of the academic disciplinescomprising heritage resource management(e.g., Shanks and Tilley 1987; Greenfield

1989; Handler 1991; Greaves 1994; Díaz-Andreu and Champion 1996; Posey andDutfield 1996; Haley and Wilcoxon 1997;Ziff and Rao 1997; Messenger 1999;Warren 1999; Whiteley 2002). In this case,we think our years of academic archival andarchaeological investigations embrace thefirst component of Principle 2, which statesinterpretation should be “based on system-atic and well-researched evidence gatheredthrough accepted scientific methods.” Butwhat about the second component, whichinsists that evidence also should come from“traditional sources of living cultures”?The Millses’ archival work overwrote inmany respects the myths Mignon createdfrom traditional stories and, presumably, ahealthy dollop of his own imagination. But,are our findings also not a partial refutationof the knowledge carried by members of theCane River Creole community and theAPHN? We outside academics advocatethat Melrose’s development be reconsid-ered in light of our “expert” findings, alongwith the identity of the Coincoin-Prudhomme House, and that the interpre-tations of these properties be revisedaccordingly. Should our claims trump thoseof the Cane River Creoles or the APHN?

Turning from the academics’ view tolook at authenticity in another fashion, theCreoles assert that the APHN is pickingand choosing select aspects of the Marie-Thérèse story to suit their own purposes,and thus tell an inauthentic story even asthey appropriate it. Marie-Thérèse isreferred to in the standard tour as an exam-ple of Melrose’s female residents, even as astrong, independent African Americanwoman, but not as the founder of what is anactive, thriving Creole community. In a tourgiven in May 2005 by a member of theAPHN, a Creole woman from Natchitoches



was rather dismayed to hear twice on thetour that the Cane River Creoles had been“wiped out by Jim Crow” (Michelle Pichon,personal communication, 17 May 2005).Will APHN’s tale be the accepted one, sim-ply because it is repeated to the greatestnumber of people, far more than the num-bers that make up the Creole community orwho will thumb through academic booksand journals?

Rather than enter discussions of whohas the right to speak for whom, whoseepistemology has greatest validity, andwhether one historic narrative is moreimportant than any other, the EnameCharter measures claims of legitimacyagainst the definition of “authenticity” theUnited Nations considered in its 1994 NaraDocument. This definition recognizes thatvalue judgments on cultural properties, aswell as the credibility of pertinent informa-tion sources related to them, differ cross-culturally and sometimes intra-culturally,making it impossible to establish fixed crite-ria of legitimacy. Instead, heritage sites mustbe considered and judged within their owncontexts. This is the tautology of relativism,apparently broken by the requirement ofinclusivity woven through both the Naraand Ename documents. Alternate viewsmust be heard, or, in the language ofPrinciple 6 of the charter: “Interpretation ofcultural heritage sites must actively involvethe participation of all stakeholders andassociated communities,” who must con-tribute to the planning process of the inter-pretive program and receive its benefits.

At this point it bears mentioning thatwe are in the enviable position where ouracademic information contests aspects ofthe APHN and the Cane River Creole’sinformation, while relations between thesethree corporate groups—Creoles, outside

academics, and the APHN—remainremarkably cordial considering the emo-tional and economic issues at stake. Wehave, for instance, worked closely with theAPHN and the Louisiana Creole HeritageCenter, an outreach and research unithoused at Northwestern State University ofLouisiana, as well as with many individualrepresentatives of the Creole heritage revi-talization effort. Part of the reason for theamiability is that all of the parties involvedshare, at some level, a fundamental ground-ing in Western epistemologies, so the prob-lematic fixed criteria of legitimacy dis-cussed in the Ename Charter is less an issuehere than in some other cultural contexts.Unlike traditional stakeholders contestinginterpretation at other sites, we do not facethe dilemma where one person’s body ofproof simply does not exist as a conceptual-ly valid measure of authenticity.

Accepting the value of the Creole tradi-tional narrative as the Ename Charter advo-cates has not been difficult for those of uson the academic side of the table. We recog-nize the importance of oral tradition bothfor the sociohistorical data it contains andfor its importance in the transmission ofcultural values and knowledge, so the dia-logue that develops from these personalinteractions is akin to an informationexchange between any set of researchers.The Creoles want to know what we havediscovered that they either did not know, orto which they can contribute a personal orfamilial perspective. We want to know whatpersonal or familial links we either willnever find in the archival or archaeologicalrecords or will simply have overlookedbecause of our own cultural or methodolog-ical blinders. We are not in oppositionbecause our work does not diminish theimportance of their past or present, and



indeed only serves to highlight them in pro-fessional, national forums. As part of theirdesire to no longer be lost between the colorlines, “the forgotten people” of America, asthey are sometimes described (Mills 1977;Sarpy interview in Rodman 2005), seekknowledge and information about their pastfrom whatever quarter it may derive, be itoral tradition or empirical testing.

Accommodating and presenting thetraditional or academic narratives may notbe quite as straightforward from the APHNperspective. By linking the Creoles toMarie-Thérèse and by linking Marie-Thérèse to Melrose, the Creoles’ heritagehas become pivotal to the economic successof the heritage site and the area at large, aconcept addressed by the Ename Charter’sfifth principle on economic sustainability.Central Louisiana is characterized bypoverty, geographic isolation, and low taxa-tion capacity. Heritage tourism is one of thefew local industries that exists outside oflumber and agriculture. In a region withpoverty levels nearly three times greaterthan the national average and with a medianhousehold income less than half that of thenational average (Sims 2005:4), the abilityof heritage tourism to generate tax dollarsfrom outside visitors cannot be overstated.

A survey in 2003 of 399 heritagetourists in the Cane River National HeritageArea, which encompasses Melrose, indicat-ed that 65% of the visitors to this area camefrom out of state and 4% were internationalvisitors (Stynes and Sun 2004:5, Table 2).Of the 399 visitors, 74% of them stayed anaverage of 2.4 nights in the area (Stynes andSun 2004:6, Table 3). This last figure isespecially important, because MichiganState University researchers calculate thatwhile the average day-trip travel partyspends about $100 on admissions, travel

costs, meals, and shopping, the averageovernight travel party brings $217 to $466dollars to the area, depending on whetheror not they stay overnight in a hotel or a bedand breakfast (Stynes and Sun 2004:9,Table 13). Melrose is one of the major cul-tural tourism sites within the NationalHeritage Area and central Louisiana. Ofthese 399 sampled visitors, for instance,Melrose was the heritage site visited by thegreatest number of people and was the her-itage site of which visitors rated themselvesmost aware (Figures10 and 11) (Stynes andSun 2004:8, and Figure 2 therein). To putthis in more concrete terms, last yearMelrose brought to the parish 13,564 visi-tors, not counting those who attended vari-ous festivals and the annual Tour of Homes(Iris Harper, Natchitoches Tourist Com-mission, personal communication, 6 May2005). At $7 per adult and $4 per child,these tourists represent a significant incomestream for the APHN and a hefty contribu-tion to the parish’s tax base. For example, in2003 and 2004 Melrose brought in fromadmission fees an average of $81,687, andvisitors in the first four months of 2005brought in $32,028, an increase of 173%over the amount brought in on average fromJanuary to April in the prior two years (SueWeaver, executive director, APHN, personalcommunication, 2 June 2005). Losing oneof the three women who form the narrativesequence at Melrose could diminish theheritage site’s appeal to many tourists,hence creating a significant economic im-pact and threatening Melrose’s long-termsustainability.

Melrose is a contested location formore than economic reasons. What makesthis particular situation unusual is that,although we academics have shed consider-able doubt on the validity of the traditional



Marie-Thérèse myth, and although theCreoles have their own origin location,Melrose remains the only place where thehistorically documented story of Marie-Thérèse can be told in an original historicsetting or landscape (Martin, n.d.:44)—animportant interpretive link recognized byEname Charter’s third principle. No otherstructures associated with her life, howeverremotely, still stand. So, what happens once

the link between the Creole progenitor andMelrose is pried apart by archival andarchaeological evidence, or when the ownerof the Coincoin-Prudhomme House suc-ceeds in his plans to develop a combinationmuseum/bed and breakfast?

The tenets of the Ename Charterwould direct us to continue telling the Cre-oles’ story at Melrose, for the Creoles areprimary components of the social context in



Figure 10. Visitor attendance at heritage tourism sites in Natchitoches Parish, 2004 (adapted from Figure 2 in Stynes and Sun2004, 8).

Figure 11. Visitor attendance at and awareness of Melrose Plantation (adapted from Figure 2 in Stynes and Sun 2004, 8).

which Melrose developed and operated. Itis simply impossible to comprehend whatMelrose represents without their story and,according to the charter, their direct inputon its interpretation. The point may bemoot, because Louis will become the vehi-cle by which his mother’s tale is told, andLouis and Melrose will come to symbolizethe prosperity of Marie-Thérèse’s descen-dents; however, for this to happen theAPHN would have to recognize the voicesof Creole oral tradition and academicarchival and archaeological research. TheCoincoin-Prudhomme property, if everdeveloped into a private commercial ven-ture, could serve as a visitor center for the(archaeological) Marie-Thérèse home sitenext door and be marketed in concert withMelrose, so that the two complement eachother and add yet another dimension to avisitor’s experience.

Collaborative input on the part of thestakeholders is in fact the avenue of resolu-tion currently being negotiated betweenthese various voices we have described. Forinstance, the negotiation of a mutually satis-factory narrative is still in progress. TheTour of Homes Committee has asked forassistance in telling the “alternate” historythe Creoles prefer (J. Colson, director,Creole Heritage Center, personal communi-cation, 17 May 2005), and the Creole Heri-tage Center currently is creating a travelingexhibit on the formation of the Cane RiverCreole community that will debut inOctober 2005 at Melrose during the Tourof Homes. The exhibit will explain the his-tory of the Metoyer family and their kin (J.Colson, director, Creole Heritage Center,personal communication, 17 May 2005).Brochures will supplement the exhibit andwill be distributed to visitors at Melroseafter the exhibit has moved elsewhere. The

APHN thus is not deprived of one of thethree women around whose lives their inter-pretive tours center, and has the addedincentive of being able to deliver a morerobust, authentic narrative to the public.

Once the APHN and the Creoles agreeon the manner in which the Marie-Thérèsenarrative is presented, cultural appropria-tion issues will lose much of their potency.Melrose, with its imposing main house,would come to serve the Creoles as animportant symbol of the Metoyer family’swealth, as is evidenced by its use as a back-drop in this context in a 2005 documentaryon Cane River Creoles aired on LouisianaPublic Broadcasting (Rodman 2005).Viewed in the context of Melrose planta-tion, it is easy to argue that America’s “for-gotten people” once were a very successful,prosperous part of the American past.

Meanwhile, the Cane River NationalHeritage Area has identified Cane RiverCreole culture as one of their primary inter-pretive themes. Their interpretive planurges that more research be conducted fo-cusing on the links between Marie-Thérèseand Melrose, but that her story should con-tinue to be told at the plantation in recogni-tion of her importance to visitors and thelocal community (Martin n.d.:44). Morebroadly, the challenges faced by the APHN,like other heritage organizations, are indeveloping well-researched interpretativethemes and delivering them through well-trained guides and up-to-date presenta-tions, while operating within a tight budgetand dealing with on-going conservationissues. In this sense, persuading the APHNto accept historic information from bothstakeholders and academics as valuablecontributions to Melrose’s interpretation iseasy; it is much harder to see a clear waythrough the remolding of the interpretation



of the site, from advertising pamphlets toretraining guides, especially when the statusquo of the site operates well from a financialpoint of view.

What this discussion reiterates howev-er, is that the Cane River has a rich resourceof material and social history to draw uponin developing heritage tourism. Eventually,the stories of Marie-Thérèse as an influen-tial African American woman, and as thehead of the Cane River Creoles, could betold. The more variety there is in interpret-ing these histories, whether through chang-ing presentations at Melrose to encouragerepeat local visits, or even through develop-ing new audience attractions aimed at theovernight visitor market, the more it will notonly add to the nuances of the stories told,but also alleviate the pressure on one loca-tion to present the definitive history.

As far as we academics are concerned,the process by which these different com-peting narratives formed, the myths theygenerated, and the way they became inte-grated into something deemed authentic

becomes yet another element of the story.We would like to think that we were able tolearn something about the structures, theirhistory, and their inhabitants that addedgreater depth and texture to the narrativestold by both competing voices, and thusprofited the APHN, Cane River Creoles,and the public at large. Even if we revealedmore questions than answers, or threatenedthe interpretive status quo, perhaps ourworth is measurable by the motion ourinquiries are beginning to lend to an other-wise static interpretation. When it comes tothe many daily interpretive tours atMelrose, or general conversations withinthe local community, how our voice ulti-mately is interpreted and incorporated iron-ically will be under the control of those whohave perpetuated Mignon’s legends.Through the Ename Charter, it may be pos-sible for all stakeholders to use and reinventcompeting Cane River Creole histories in away that fosters economically viable,informative, and balanced interpretations ofvaluable heritage resources.



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David W. Morgan, National Center for Preservation Technology and Training, 645University Parkway, Natchitoches, Louisiana 71457; [email protected]

Kevin C. MacDonald, Institute of Archaeology, University College London, 31–34 GordonSquare, London WC1H 0PY United Kingdom; [email protected]

Fiona J. L. Handley, Winchester School of Art, University of Southampton, Park Avenue,Winchester SO23 8DL United Kingdom; [email protected]



ADDENDUM

[Ed. note: In April 2008 the co-authors requested that the following addendum, which clarifies some of thekey conclusions of the article based on new evidence, be appended to the online (PDF) edition. Theaddendum was accepted and posted in May 2008.]

Since writing both this article and a chapter which appeared in the edited volume A Future for the Past, wehave entered into correspondence with Elizabeth Shown Mills of Samford University Institute of Genealogyand Historical Research, and the widow of the late historian, Gary B. Mills. Through this correspondence wehave learned that our assertions concerning her and G.B. Mills’s conclusions regarding the involvement ofMarie-Thérèse Coincoin with the foundation of Melrose do not represent the views expressed in their morerecent publications on the subject (cf. Mills and Mills 1982:177; G.B. Mills 1984:101; E.S. Mills, in press).Indeed, we have been informed by Elizabeth Mills that their original Melrose booklet, which remains in use atthe heritage property and from which our assertions were principally derived, had in fact been nuanced by theproperty’s proprietors—without the authors’ consent—in order to reflect a stronger link between Marie-Thérèse Coincoin and that property (E.S. Mills. pers. comm., 13 December 2007). We (the co-authors)request that this addendum be published to make clear that our own views and the published views ofElizabeth Mills concerning the relationship of Marie-Thérèse Coincoin and the Melrose property are in factlargely in agreement, and that it was not our intention to in any way to diminish the outstanding scholarlyreputation of E.S. Mills and the late G.B. Mills, for whom we have the greatest respect.

ReferencesMills, Elizabeth S. In press. Marie Thérèze Coincoin (1742–1816): Black Creole touchstone and paradox. In

Louisiana Women. Athens: University of Georgia Press.Mills, Elizabeth S., and Gary B. Mills. 1982. Slaves and masters: The Louisiana Metoyers. National

Genealogical Society Quarterly 70:3, 163–189.Mills, Gary B. 1984. Liberté, fraternité, and everything but égalitié: Cane River’s Citoyens de Couleur. In

North Louisiana: Essays on the Region and Its History, vol. 1. B.H. Gilley, ed. Ruston, La.: McGintyTrust Fund Publications, 93–112.

David W. MorganKevin C. MacDonald

Fiona J. L. Handley

Because of the range and intensity ofcognitions about wildlife extant in theAmerican public (Bright, Manfredo, andFulton 2000; Kellert 1996), wildlife man-agement actions may become the focus ofpublic controversy when any subset ofstakeholders2 perceives a negative impact3

from a management intervention. This pos-sibility has led many agencies to involvestakeholders more openly in wildlife man-agement4 decision-making. Greater publicinvolvement in controversial issues requiresmanagers to apply their understanding ofthe social and political contexts for manage-ment in addition to their knowledge ofwildlife biology and ecology. Understand-ing the sociopolitical factors that fuel the

progression of wildlife issues from vagueconcerns about human–wildlife interac-tions into full-blown public issues thereforeis of practical value to the wildlife manager.

Policy analysts, public issues educa-tors, and political scientists have long beeninterested in articulating the process where-by the spark of a concern becomes a fullyengulfed public issue. Models have beendeveloped to describe the evolution of pub-lic issues and help guide practitioners inissue resolution (Dale and Hahn 1994).Using the model promoted by Hahn(1988), we describe four stages in the evolu-tion of public issues with respect to wildlife,adapted to address wildlife management innational parks (Figure 1).


Application of an Issue Evolution Model to WildlifeIssues in National Parks

Kirsten M. Leong, Daniel J. Decker, Margaret A. Wild, and John Karish

IntroductionTHE OFTEN-QUOTED PURPOSE OF THE NATIONAL PARK SERVICE (NPS) is “to promote andregulate the use of ... national parks ... which purpose is to conserve the scenery and the nat-ural and historic objects and the wild life therein and to provide for the enjoyment of thesame in such manner and by such means as will leave them unimpaired for the enjoyment offuture generations” (National Park Service Act, 1916). Within the legally defined boundariesof a particular park, NPS resource managers face the challenge of simultaneously attendingto both the conservation and public enjoyment of resources. Adding to this challenge, parksencounter many natural resource management issues,1 such as those related to wildlife, thatare not limited by park boundaries. Among these, human–wildlife interactions can elicitstrong positive and negative emotions in people. Park actions affecting wildlife can evokeequally strong and often disparate public reactions. These commonly evolve into publicissues as managers deal with the practical aspects of responding to wildlife concerns thatextend beyond park boundaries or involve controversial management practices that attractlarger regional or national dialogue.

• Identifying potential issues. Con-cerns are voiced and activity from con-cerned individuals increases, althoughissues are not yet fully formed.

• Focusing issues. Issues are formallydefined, goals and objectives set, anddata collected (laying the groundworkfor program evaluation).

• Planning action. Potential actions toaddress issues are identified based ondata collected. These are evaluatedwith respect to variables such as effica-cy, social acceptability, and cost.

• Taking action. Chosen managementalternatives are implemented, evaluat-ed, and adjusted. Activities may berefined as a result of evaluation throughmonitoring, as an adaptive manage-ment strategy.

This model reflects our understandingof emerging ideals of practice with respectto issues education. These ideals includeearly and frequent dialogue with the public(NPS 2000, 2003a; Wilsdon and Willis2004), which may be adopted in practice to

varying degrees. In our treatment of themodel, we separate NPS and the public toidentify potential tension points betweennatural resource managers and stakehold-ers, as well as among stakeholders them-selves. The four stages are not a prescrip-tive, step-by-step formula for decision-mak-ing, but rather serve as a general guide tohelp managers reflect on questions such as:Where are we in the public or political“life” of an issue? What steps are needed toreach good decisions about objectives ormanagement actions? Is the outcome likely?How do we know whether we are makingprogress toward resolving the issue?

Stages of wildlife issue evolution innational parks

Identifying potential issues. Thisstage is characterized by the emergence ofvoiced concerns and increased activity fromstakeholders (Table 1).

Focusing issues. When issues developto this stage, the nature of the issue typical-ly is formally defined, goals and objectivesare set for wildlife management, and data


Figure 1. Issue evolutionmodel in wildlife manage-ment (adapted from Hahn,1988).

are collected, laying groundwork for effec-tive program evaluation. Ideally, park man-agers and stakeholders work together to dis-cover areas of commonality and differences;input from non-vocal stakeholders is active-ly sought (Table 2).

Planning action. If research does notshow negative impacts of wildlife on parkmanagement objectives, interpretive pro-grams that explain the situation may be im-plemented to improve correlation betweenpublic perception and scientific analysis.


Table 1. The “identifying potential issues” stage of the model.


Table 2. The “focusing issues” stage of the model.

If research reveals that wildlife is pre-venting the park from fulfilling managementobjectives, park managers likely begin inter-nal dialogue and discuss potential alterna-tives with respect to applicable NPS policy.Initial, informal analysis of alternatives (asin developing resource stewardship plans)may reveal the need to consider more con-troversial alternatives that legally requireformal stakeholder involvement processesin compliance with the National Environ-mental Policy Act (NEPA, 1969). Regard-less of compliance requirements, at thisstage managers and stakeholders typicallydiscuss alternative actions and analyze con-sequences, with respect to both short- andlong-term management goals and objec-tives. Park managers consider stakeholderinput when selecting the preferred alterna-tive for implementation. New alternativesmay become apparent through discussionof consequences or evaluation of the differ-ent choices. Emphasis is placed on effectivecommunication, public participation, andcreative thinking (Table 3).

Taking action. This stage involvesimplementation, evaluation, and adaptationof the chosen management alternative(s).Evaluation is aided by clear goals and objec-tives. Activities may be refined as a result ofprogress evaluation, informed by dataacquired through monitoring. Modifica-tions or fine-tuning of management activi-ties may occur as part of an adaptive man-agement strategy (Table 4).

Extending the modelThe stage-to-stage progression of pub-

lic issues depicted in the model is anapproximation of how many public issuesevolve, but issue evolution often is not a lin-ear process. In fact, recent application of theHahn model to ten cases of suburban deer

management revealed that issues often pro-gressed in a start-and-stop fashion, advanc-ing but then reverting back to earlier stagesof the cycle (Raik, Siemer, and Decker2004). This phenomenon often is related tothe disparity in knowledge and understand-ing of various stakeholders, a situation thatmay be overcome using strategic communi-cation. For example, when natural resourcemanagers and/or various stakeholdergroups are not at the same phase of thecycle, communication between groups canimprove alignment to assure that all partiesunderstand the issue in the same way beforeprogressing to the next phase. Improvingstakeholder understanding, attitudes, andinput at all phases of the cycle is a key activ-ity in this approach. Yet, because the NPSultimately is responsible for its naturalresource management decisions, dialoguebetween managers and stakeholders techni-cally is not required at all phases of issueevolution. Varying degrees of stakeholderinvolvement, perhaps especially in earlystages, may partially explain why publicwildlife issues do not always evolve in a lin-ear fashion.

Under NEPA, NPS managers are re-quired by law to include public input onlywhen a park proposes or approves an actionwhose impacts on the human environmentare significant enough to warrant an envi-ronmental impact statement (EIS); i.e.,when the issues have reached the phase of“planning actions” (Figure 2). Reachingconsensus or formal agreement with thepublic during action planning is not legallymandated, and courts have upheld NEPA asimposing only procedural requirements,preventing uninformed, rather than sociallyunacceptable, agency action (Robertson v.Methow Valley Citizens Council 1989).Operating strictly under this approach, the



Table 3. The “planning action” stage of the model.


Table 4. The “taking action” stage of the model.

public is asked for input on alternative solu-tions to NPS-defined issues, goals, anddata. Although managers may haveaddressed each of the earlier phases indepth through internal NPS scoping, thereis no guarantee that members of the publichave reached the same level of understand-ing of the issue, or share NPS perspectivesabout reasonable solutions. The Depart-ment of the Interior recently addressed thisdiscrepancy by issuing requirements thatinterested community members be offeredtraining in both community-based planning

and the NEPA process (U.S. Office ofEnvironmental Policy 2003). Nevertheless,public input processes that meet NEPA’sprocedural requirements frequently haveresulted in court challenges to EISs.Lawsuits may result in a return to earlyphases of the issue evolution cycle, requir-ing parks to reassess the nature of the prob-lem and appropriate solutions, as in thecase of deer management at CuyahogaValley National Park (NPS 2003b).

The federal government is placinggreater emphasis on including stakeholders

in policy-making from the beginning of, andcontinuing throughout, the issue evolutioncycle (Figure 2), a practice known as “up-stream” public engagement (Wilsdon andWillis 2004). Recent NPS policies explicit-ly call for active, on-going public participa-tion in the planning process (NPS 2000),re-emphasized in a Director’s Order:

The purpose of this Director’s Order(DO) is to articulate our commitmentto civic engagement, and to have allNational Park Service (NPS) unitsand offices embrace civic engagementas the essential foundation and frame-work for creating plans and develop-ing programs.... This philosophymeans that we do more than meet theminimum legal requirements for pub-lic involvement in our decisions and

activities. It means a regular, naturaland sustained level of interaction withpeople, both from within and outsidethe NPS. This, in turn, will enhanceour ability to achieve our mission,which is conserving park resourcesunimpaired for the enjoyment of pres-ent and future generations (NPS2003a:1–2).

Engaging the public early on may helpmanagers establish a common foundationfor constructive discussion of alternativeswhen the planning phase is reached.Utilizing a model such as the one outlinedabove may assist thinking about complexwildlife issues by encouraging attention toeach element in the issue evolution progres-sion. Park managers who incorporate suchthinking into their practice are likely to be


Figure 2. Policy implications for communication with respect to the issue evolution Model. “New policy” includes ManagementPolicies 2001 (NPS 2000) and Director’s Order #75A (NPS 2003a).

well poised to engage stakeholders in learn-ing, deliberation, and, eventually, decision-making. Managers may find that educatingstakeholders about wildlife issues andengaging them as part of the analysis of the

management situation, as well as duringdevelopment of solutions, enhances publicacceptance and effectiveness of wildlifemanagement practices in NPS units.


AcknowledgmentsWe would like to thank staff of the National Park Service Biological Resource

Management Division and Cornell University Department of Natural Resources for theirreview of drafts of this manuscript. The views and conclusions contained in this documentare those of the authors and should not be interpreted as representing the opinions or poli-cies of the U.S. government.

Endnotes1. An “issue” is a statement that can be acted upon (Kent and Preister 1999).2. “Stakeholders” are individuals who will be affected by, or will affect, wildlife management(Decker et al. 1996; Decker, Brown, and Siemer 2001). NPS sometimes refers to people whomeet this definition as “interested parties”; however, we use the term “stakeholder” as it ismore widely applied in the natural resource management profession. The term “stakehold-er” should not be confused with “special-interest group” or with only those people cog-nizant of their stake (especially in planning activities), as it is possible for someone who maybe affected by wildlife management decisions and actions to be unaware of the conse-quences, or for someone who will not be directly affected by management decisions to showa genuine interest.3. “Impacts” are the socially determined important effects of events or interactions involvingwildlife, humans and wildlife, and wildlife management interventions, and are defined broad-ly in terms of human values with respect to wildlife (Riley et al. 2002). Perceptions of impactsalso are affected by the context in which they occur, with social norms relevant to that con-text influencing the interpretation of events and interactions (Zinn et al. 1998; Decker,Jacobson, and Brown, in review).4. We use the term “wildlife management” broadly to include planning, decision-making,and actions where wildlife is the primary focus of the management goal, and management ofwildlife enables achievement of objectives for other resources. Management actions also mayinclude interventions solely directed towards people to affect human–wildlife interactions.

ReferencesBright, A.D., M.J. Manfredo, and D.C. Fulton. 2000. Segmenting the public: An application

of value orientations to wildlife planning in Colorado. Wildlife Society Bulletin 28:1,218–226.

Dale, D.D., and Alan J. Hahn. 1994. Public Issues Education: Increasing Competence inResolving Public Issues. Madison: University of Wisconsin–Extension.

Decker, Daniel J., Tommy L. Brown, and William F. Siemer. 2001. Human Dimensions ofWildlife Management in North America. Bethesda, Md.: The Wildlife Society.

Decker, Daniel J., Cynthia A. Jacobson, and Tommy L. Brown. In review. Situation specific‘impact dependency’ as a determinant of acceptability of wildlife management: Insights

from wolf and grizzly management in Alaska. Wildlife Society Bulletin.Decker, Daniel J., Charles C. Krueger, Richard A. Baer, Jr., Barbara A. Knuth, and Milo E.

Richmond. 1996. From clients to stakeholders: A philosophical shift for fish and wild-life management. Human Dimensions of Wildlife 1:1, 70–82.

Hahn, Alan J. 1988. Resolving Public Issues and Concerns through Policy Education. Raleigh:North Carolina Agricultural Extension Service.

Kellert, Stephen R. 1996. The Value of Life: Biological Diversity and Human Society.Washington, D.C.: Island Press.

Kent, James A., and Kevin Preister. 1999. Methods for the Development of HumanGeographic Boundaries and their Uses. Report prepared under Cooperative Agreementno. 1422-P850-A8-0015 between James Kent Associates and the U.S. Department ofthe Interior, Bureau of Land Management, Task Order no. 001.

NPS [National Park Service]. 2000. Management Policies 2001. Washington, D.C.: NPS.———. 2003a. Director’s Order #75A: Civic Engagement and Public Involvement.

Washington, D.C.: NPS.———. 2003b. Final EIS—Rural Landscape Management Program. Brecksville, Ohio:

Cuyahoga Valley National Park.Raik, Daniela, William F. Siemer, and Daniel J. Decker. 2004. Community-based Suburban

Deer Management: Six Case Studies of Issue Evolution, Capacity, and Intervention.Human Dimensions Research Unit Publication Series no. 04-1. Ithaca, N.Y.: Depart-ment of Natural Resources, College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, Cornell Univer-sity.

Riley, S. J., D.J. Decker, L.H. Carpenter, J.F. Organ, W.F. Siemer, G.F. Mattfeld, and G.Parsons. 2002. The essence of wildlife management. Wildlife Society Bulletin 30:2,585–593.

U.S. Office of Environmental Policy. 2003. PEP-Environmental Statement Memorandum no.ESM 03-4, Procedures for Implementing Public Participation and Community-basedTraining. Washington, D.C.: Department of the Interior.

Wilsdon, James, and Rebecca Willis. 2004. See-through Science: Why Public EngagementNeeds to Move Upstream. London: Demos.

Zinn, H.C., M.J. Manfredo, J.J. Vaske, and K. Wittmann. 1998. Using normative beliefs todetermine the acceptability of wildlife management actions. Society and NaturalResources 11:7, 649–662.

Kirsten M. Leong, Human Dimensions Research Unit, Department of Natural Resources,Cornell University, Ithaca, New York 14853; [email protected]

Daniel J. Decker, Human Dimensions Research Unit, Department of Natural Resources,Cornell University, Ithaca, New York 14853; [email protected]

Margaret A. Wild, Biological Resource Management Division, Natural Resource ProgramCenter, National Park Service, 1201 Oakridge Drive, Suite 200, Fort Collins, Colorado80525; [email protected]

John Karish, Northeast Regional Office, National Park Service, 209B Ferguson Building,University Park, Pennsylvania 16802; [email protected]


Second, managing national parkecosystems is challenging because parkmanagers cannot accurately determineecosystem states and predict the outcomesof management actions due to uncertainty.Four sources of uncertainty arise. First, vari-ability in social, demographic, ecological,and economic factors makes it difficult toinfer the state of an ecosystem fromobserved conditions and predict ecosystemresponses to management actions inadvance of their implementation. Second,sampling and measurement errors make itdifficult to precisely measure ecosystemconditions. Third, incomplete knowledgeof ecosystems prevents accurate assessmentof ecosystem states. Fourth, there is oftendisagreement or uncertainty about theattributes of desirable ecosystem states(Peterman and Peters 1998; Conroy 2000).

Adaptive management (AM) providesan appropriate framework for managingecosystems subject to multiple sources ofuncertainty (Prato 2000, 2003, 2005).Specifically, AM: (1) increases the rate atwhich policy makers and resource man-agers acquire knowledge about ecologicalrelationships; (2) aids management deci-sions through the use of iterative hypothe-sis-testing; (3) enhances information flowsamong policy makers; and (4) createsshared understandings among scientists,policy-makers, and managers (Peterman1977; Holling 1978; Clark et al. 1979;McLain and Lee 1996; Wondolleck andYaffe 2000).

This article proposes an AM frame-work for national park ecosystems. Thenext section presents an overview of AM.The third section discusses the use of AM


Adaptive Management of National Park Ecosystems

Tony Prato

MANAGEMENT OF NATIONAL PARK ECOSYSTEMS (i.e., national parks and the larger ecosystemsin which they are located) is challenging for two reasons. First, national parks face numerousinternal and external threats that are increasing over time (Dilsaver 1994; Prato 2005).National Park Service (NPS) policy encourages park managers to use their statutory author-ities to protect natural resources and park values from these threats. In this regard, NPS pol-icy states: “Strategies and actions beyond park boundaries have become increasingly neces-sary as the National Park Service strives to fulfill its mandate.... Recognizing that parks areintegral parts of larger regional environments, the Service will work cooperatively with oth-ers to ... protect park resources and values and ... address mutual interests ... such as com-patible economic development and resource and environmental protection” (NPS 2001).Canada’s first State of the National Parks Report recognized that “none of the parks wasimmune to internal and external threats” and cited “water pollution, poaching, and loggingon lands adjacent to park boundaries as some of the major threats to the integrity of park-lands” (McNamee 2002).

for national park ecosystems. The fourthsection describes the impacts of land devel-opment on ecosystems. The fifth sectioncontains a hypothetical example of AM ofMontana’s Northern Continental DivideEcosystem for recovery of grizzly bears. Asummary and conclusions are given in thelast section.

Overview of adaptive managementThe concept of AM surfaced in the

mid-1970s as a way of managing ecosys-tems under uncertainty (Holling 1978;Walters and Holling 1990; Irwin andWigley 1993; Walters 1996; Parma et al.1998). The basic premise of AM is that “ifhuman understanding of nature is imper-fect, then human interactions with nature[e.g., management actions] should beexperimental” (Lee 1993). Kohm andFranklin (1997) state that “adaptive man-agement is the only logical approach underthe circumstances of uncertainty and thecontinued accumulation of knowledge.”Woodley (2002) points out that, “becauseof the difficulty in predicting ecosystemresponse, active management should beundertaken in national parks using adaptivemanagement techniques.”

AM is useful in making decisionsabout the state of an ecosystem and ecosys-tem responses to alternative managementactions when there is uncertainty. It involvesmajor investments in research, monitoring,and modeling to test alternative hypothesesabout sustainable use and management ofnatural resources (Smith and Walters 1981;Hilborn et al. 1995; Walters and Green1997). In an AM approach, public landmanagers experimentally test managementactions so as to maximize their capacity tolearn about ecosystem responses to thoseactions while simultaneously attempting to

satisfy management objectives.AM can be passive or active. Passive

AM uses models to predict ecosystemresponses to management actions and selectbest management actions, and employsmonitoring data to revise the parameters ofthe models (Walters and Hilborn 1978;Hilborn 1992). Passive AM is relativelysimple and inexpensive to apply because itdoes not require replication and random-ization of treatments. Unfortunately, thisfeature makes passive AM knowledge aboutecosystem states and responses to manage-ment actions unreliable (Wilhere 2002).

Active AM tests hypotheses aboutecosystem states and responses to manage-ment actions by treating managementactions as experiments that generate infor-mation for testing hypotheses about ecosys-tem states and responses. For example, amanager could use AM to test hypothesesabout whether a national park ecosystem isin a desirable or undesirable state. If thestate is judged to be undesirable, then man-agement actions should be taken to achievea desirable state. Unlike a trial-and-errorapproach that provides slow and randomaccumulation of information, the informa-tion provided by active AM is reliable (Lee1993).

There are ten prerequisites for suc-cessful application of active AM (Lee 1993;Wilhere 2002; Prato and Fagre 2005).

1. There must be a mandate to takeaction in the face of uncertainty. Nationalpark managers need to realize that the out-comes of most management actions areuncertain. Experimentation and learning innational park ecosystems are at best second-ary objectives that are likely to be dismissedor not even proposed if they conflict withprimary objectives, such as recreation andnatural resource protection. However, most


national park managers know that ecosys-tem states and effects of certain manage-ment actions are uncertain.

2. Preservation of pristine environ-ments is no longer an option. While manynational parks have remarkable natural andcultural resources, very few are totally pris-tine. Even national parks that are relativelypristine are subject to human disturbanceboth within and outside their boundariesand, hence, must be treated as managedecosystems.

3. Human intervention is not capableof producing desired outcomes predictably.AM is not needed when ecosystem statesand management outcomes are predictable.Unpredictability occurs because manage-ment actions have uncertain outcomes.

4. There must be sufficient institutionalstability to measure long-term outcomes. AMexperiments need to be carried out over thelong term in order to capture the relativelyslow responses of ecosystems to humaninterventions. The institutional environ-ment for many national parks is stablebecause the management agency is chargedwith managing the park in accordance withobjectives established in an organic act.However, there are sources of institutionalinstability, including turnover in uppermanagement, declining budgets, and, insome countries, political instability and war.In any event, institutional stability is typi-cally outside the control of experimentersand managers.

5. It must be possible to formulate hypo-theses. Based on past experience and scien-tific knowledge, national park managersshould be able to design experiments to testhypotheses about ecosystem states andresponses to management actions. It is gen-erally not technically, financially, or politi-cally feasible to test all relevant hypotheses.

6. Theory, models, and field methodsmust be available to estimate and inferecosystem-scale behavior. While scientificknowledge about ecological and socioeco-nomic relationships for national parkecosystems is incomplete, there is usuallysufficient understanding of the ecosystem todesign monitoring, research, and evaluationprograms, and to design sampling schemesto collect the data needed to test hypothesesregarding ecosystem states and responses tomanagement actions. AM increases knowl-edge by promoting learning. Preliminaryresults might indicate that the experimentaldesign was faulty or certain managementactions are not likely to achieve desirableecosystem states or outcomes. The latterincreases the pressure to change manage-ment actions before experiments are com-pleted, which is disruptive.

7. Decision-makers need to view man-agement actions as experiments and uncer-tainty about outcomes as potential hazards.The idea of experimenting with nationalpark ecosystems, particularly highly visibleones, is not likely to be well receivedbecause it admits the possibility that man-agement actions can fail to achieve desiredsocial, economic, and ecological objectives.Park managers need to communicate theserisks to the public and stakeholders andexplain that even if experiments do notachieve desirable outcomes, they are valu-able because they improve ecosystemknowledge.

AM for highly sensitive issues, likerecovery of declining species, can bedesigned to minimize the risk of manage-ment actions failing to recover the species.For example, risky experiments can be donein an area of a national park ecosystemwhere human and environmental factors areeasier to control. Minimizing the risk of


adverse consequences needs to be balancedwith maximizing the information value ofexperiments. Politicians seeking opportuni-ties to increase their chances of re-electionare likely to oppose experiments that couldadversely affect the welfare of their con-stituents.

8. Organizational culture must encour-age learning from experience and the culturemust value reliable information. Whilenational park managers are generally willingto learn from experience, they often evalu-ate their actions based on casual observa-tion and unreplicated actions. Active AMrequires setting in place monitoring, re-search, and evaluation programs that pro-vide statistically reliable data for testinghypotheses about ecosystem states and theeffectiveness of management actions inachieving desirable outcomes. If long-termlearning through AM provides benefits tostaff (usually the ones implementing theexperiments) but not to managers, then astruggle is likely to ensue for organizationalcontrol.

9. Resources must be sufficient to meas-ure ecosystem-scale behavior. Monitoring forAM is a long-term, expensive proposition,which makes AM vulnerable to insufficientbudgets, changes in policy, and controversy.New managers and administrators may notunderstand or support an experimentalapproach to management.

10. Decision-makers must care aboutimproving outcomes over biological timescales. The cost of monitoring controls andreplication is high at the outset relative tothe costs of unmonitored trial and error.National park managers may not have themotivation, patience, and budget to imple-ment long-term AM experiments, especiallyif their term of office is significantly lessthan biological time scales, which is almost

always the case. For example, a nationalpark manager under pressure to sustain andincrease visitation is likely to be less con-cerned with biological impacts of highervisitation, especially when the experimentsneeded to test hypotheses regarding thoseimpacts require many years to complete.

Of the ten prerequisites for active AM,numbers 1, 2, 3, 5, 6, and 7 are likely to besatisfied, while numbers 4, 8, 9, and 10 areunlikely to be satisfied.

There are two ways to improve the suc-cess of AM. First, management actions needto be substantial in order to ensure that thenatural variability inherent in ecosystemsdoes not overwhelm the effects of manage-ment actions. Second, a management actionneeds to be relatively simple in order toensure detection of ecosystem responses tothat action. Due to ecological uncertainties,managers should expect to be surprised bycertain management outcomes. Surpriseshould not be viewed as the failure to pre-dict ecological responses, but rather anopportunity to learn more about the ecosys-tem (Lee 1993).

Even if conditions for implementingactive AM are ideal, it has several limita-tions. First, it is more time-consuming,complex, and costly than other forms ofmanagement, such as passive AM, trial-and-error, and deferred action (Walters andHilborn 1978; Walters and Holling 1990).Second, it can give faulty results when rele-vant variables are either ignored or not heldconstant (Smith 1997). Third, it has certainapplication pitfalls. For example, there havebeen instances of AM in New Brunswickand British Columbia, Canada, as well as inthe Columbia River Basin, that relied exten-sively on the use of linear systems models,discounted non-scientific forms of knowl-edge, and paid inadequate attention to poli-


cy processes that promote the developmentof shared understandings among diversestakeholders (McLain and Lee 1996).Fourth, AM forthrightly tests managementactions that may not necessarily achievedesired outcomes, which can be politicallyunpopular (Lee 1993). These limitationscan be alleviated by incorporating knowl-edge from multiple sources, using severalsystems models, utilizing new forms ofcooperative decision-making (McLain andLee 1996), and educating politicians andmanagers about the benefits and risks ofAM.

Use of adaptive managementAM has been used or recommended

for use in managing national parks. BanffNational Park in Alberta, Canada, is usingpassive AM to develop its human use man-agement strategy for the park. The strategyis expected to generate new knowledge andunderstanding (learning) about “the com-plex relationship between ecologicalintegrity and human use” (Parks Canada2001). Elk Island National Park in Alberta,Canada, is using an adaptive landscapemanagement approach to manage popula-tions of elk and bison in the park (Woodley2002). The National Research Council(NRC) report on natural regulation ofungulates in Yellowstone National Park’snorthern range recommended that “to thedegree possible, all management at YNPshould be done as adaptive management”(National Research Council 2002a). TheNRC report stated that active AM wouldimprove scientific understanding of theconsequences of different managementactions and the park could continue naturalregulation of ungulates within an AMframework.

The draft supplemental environmental

impact statement (SEIS) for winter use inYellowstone National Park, Grand TetonNational Park, and the John D. Rockefeller,Jr., Memorial Parkway that connects the twoparks proposed three management alterna-tives. Alternatives 2 and 3, which do notban snowmobile use in these areas, employAM to “mitigate impacts on visitor experi-ence and access, wildlife, air quality andnatural sound while allowing snowmobileaccess on all existing oversnow routes”(National Park Service 2002). The draftSEIS states that “the first step in adaptivemanagement is to develop and implement amanagement scenario based on the bestavailable information.” This implies a pas-sive AM approach. Specifically, Alternative2 establishes interim visitor use limits foreach of the six road segments having snow-mobile use. Interim use limits are predictedto keep impacts of snowmobile use withinacceptable limits defined in terms of stan-dards for visitor experiences and parkresources. Monitoring is done to determinewhether use impacts violate the standards.If the latter occurs, then park managersdecrease use limits and adjust related man-agement actions in an effort to achieve thestandards.

The Comprehensive Everglades Res-toration Plan (CERP) is the world’s “largestand most ambitious ecosystem restoration”project involving an expected expenditureof $8 billion over 30 years to restore thehydrology of South Florida, which includesEverglades National Park (Best 2000; Kikeret al. 2001; Sklar et al. 2001). A desirablefeature of the CERP process is that plannershave flexibility to refine and revise it “aspart of [an] adaptive assessment process”(U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and SouthFlorida Water Management District 2000).An adaptive learning approach is being


used because ecosystem restoration at thescale and complexity of South Florida andthe Everglades is beyond the current knowl-edge and experience base of the scientificcommunity. Adaptive learning, which is thelearning component of adaptive manage-ment, entails “continuous growth in under-standing by scientists, managers, policymakers, political representatives and thepublic” (Kiker et al. 2001). Specifically, theshared understandings of ecological andsocioeconomic processes that emerge fromadaptive learning feed into the adaptivemanagement process, particularly the for-mulation of management action(s).

Active AM is being used in the lowerColorado River, which flows throughGrand Canyon National Park, to improveunderstanding of how water releases fromGlen Canyon Dam influence sediment, fish,vegetation, wildlife and habitat, endangeredand other special-status species, culturalresources, air quality, recreation, hydropow-er, and non-use values (Glen Canyon Adap-tive Management Program 2003).

Impacts of land developmentA major threat to the ecological integri-

ty of national park ecosystems is the conver-sion of agricultural, ranch, and forest landsto residential, commercial, and resort devel-opments. Land development reduces openspaces and increases road density, humanuse of roads, and landscape fragmentation,which are especially detrimental to largecarnivores, such as grizzly bear, mountainlion, and wolves. For instance, studies showthat the effectiveness of grizzly bear habitatdecreases with increases in road densityand human presence (Mace et al. 1996).Mortality risk is higher for grizzly bears thattravel through fragmented landscapesbecause it increases their encounters with

humans and vehicles (Harris and Gallagher1989). Hence, one way to improve grizzlybear habitat is to restrict land development.

Restrictions on land development cantake many forms, including decreasinghousing density, requiring bear proofgarbage containers, limiting the use of birdfeeders, limiting the planting of fruit trees,and controlling other bear attractants. Suchrestrictions can be implemented by amend-ing zoning and subdivision regulations andland use plans. In addition, it may be possi-ble to improve grizzly bear habitat via landdonations, land purchases, land trusts, landexchanges, and conservation easements(Brown 1999).

A hypothetical exampleThis section describes a hypothetical

example of active AM for assessing grizzlybear recovery in the Northern ContinentalDivide Ecosystem (NCDE) in northwestMontana (see Figure 1). Grizzly bear is athreatened species in the NCDE. TheNCDE covers 32,300 km2 (8 million acres),and contains Glacier National Park, theadjacent Waterton/Castle area in southernAlberta, the Bob Marshall Wilderness com-plex, and private lands. It is one of sixrecovery zones defined in the Grizzly BearRecovery Plan for the United States. TheNCDE recovery zone contains the greatestnumber of grizzly bears (400+) and is theonly zone contiguous to a strong Canadianpopulation of grizzly bear. For these rea-sons, the NCDE may offer the best prospectfor long-term survival of the grizzly bear(U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service 2003; U.S.Geological Survey, 2004).

The hypothetical example divides theNCDE into bear management units for thepurpose of testing hypotheses about grizzlybear mortality and recovery. If hypothesis


testing indicates that recovery is not beingachieved in the ecosystem, then manage-ment action is taken to reduce mortality. Tomake the example concrete, the manage-ment action for improving grizzly bear habi-tat is to impose restrictions on land devel-opment in critical habitat areas. Land devel-opment in the ecosystem has an importantbearing on grizzly bear recovery becausethe majority of human–bear conflicts andbear deaths occur on private land, whichmakes up 17% of the ecosystem (U.S. Fishand Wildlife Service 2005). Other manage-ment actions could be considered as well.

It is difficult to conduct true statisticalexperiments at the ecosystem scale.However, it is feasible to conduct pseudo-experiments to test hypotheses regarding

grizzly bear recovery. Pseudo-experimentsare not true statistical experiments because:(1) it is usually not feasible to have a control(e.g., another ecosystem in which the man-agement action is not implemented); (2) it isoften not possible to experimentally varytreatment levels (e.g., varying the rates ofhousing densities); (3) even if differenttreatments could be implemented in thesame ecosystem, they may not be spatiallyindependent (i.e., restricting housing densi-ties in one bear management unit is likely toinfluence bear mortality in other units); and(4) it is difficult to control for other factorsinfluencing bear mortality, such as weather,food availability, and logging operations.

The hypothetical example has twoecosystem states, OC and OI, two competing


Figure 1. Grizzly bear distribution and recovery area in Northern Continental Divide Ecosystem. Source: U.S. Geological Survey(2004).

hypotheses, HC and HI, and two manage-ment actions, a1 and a2. OC signifies theecosystem state is compatible (C) and OI

signifies it is incompatible (I) with recoveryof grizzly bear. HC states the bear mortalityrate is compatible (O = OC) and HI states themortality rate is incompatible (O = OI) withgrizzly bear recovery goals for the NCDE.Management action a1 imposes restrictionson land development and managementaction a2 does not restrict land developmenton private lands. Prior probabilities for thetwo ecosystem states are p(OC) and p(OI),where p(OI) = 1 – p(OC), and can be eitherestimated using suitable data or subjectivelydetermined using expert knowledge, suchas by the Delphi method. The latter is astructured procedure that uses question-naires and controlled opinion feedback tocollect and synthesize knowledge about aparticular value from a group of experts(Bakus et al. 1982; Turoff and Linstone2002). A subjective probability reflects thedecision-maker’s personal knowledge andbeliefs about the likelihood of the hypothe-ses being true before experiments are con-ducted.

Posterior probabilities for OC and OI

are calculated using Bayes’ theorem as fol-lows:

p(OC|X = X0) = [p(OC) p(X = X0|OC)]/p(X = X0)

p(OI|X = X0) = [p(OI) p(X =X0|OI)]/p(X=X0).

X is the number of sampled areas in theNCDE that have high rates of bear mortali-ty, X0 is a particular value of X, p(X = X0) =p(OC) p(X = X0|OC) + p(OI) p(X = X0|OI),and p(X = X0|OC) and p(X = X0|OI) are thelikelihoods that X = X0 given the ecosystem

state is OC and OI, respectively. Likelihoodfunctions can be estimated. For example,suppose X is normally distributed. Thelikelihood function for a sample drawn fromthis distribution has a normal distributionwith sample mean z´ and standard deviations/(n)1/2, where s is the sample standard devi-ation and n is the sample size (Prato 2000).

Suppose 12 bear management units inthe NCDE are randomly sampled (n = 12)and the number of units out of 12 with highbear mortality (X) determined. If test resultsdo not lead to rejection of HI, then mortali-ty rates are high and land developmentrestrictions are justified. Otherwise, landmanagement restrictions are not justified. Inan actual application, the sample size wouldbe greater than 12 provided there are morethan 12 bear management units in theNCDE. The hypothetical example uses asample size of 12 in order to keep the fol-lowing example tables manageable. Table 1summarizes hypothetical likelihoods orprobabilities of values of X between 0 and12, the posterior probability that theecosystem state is OI for p(OI) = 0.84, themost likely ecosystem state (OC or OI), andthe resulting decision regarding whether ornot to restrict land development in theNCDE.

Hypothetical sampling results indicatethat land development should not berestricted (HI rejected and a2 selected) for X< 4 because the posterior probabilities forthese values of X are less than 0.05, a com-monly specified value of α (Type I error, orprobability of deciding not to restrict landdevelopment when the ecosystem state isincompatible with recovery). Land develop-ment should be restricted for 9 < X < 12 (HI

not rejected and a1 selected) because theposterior probabilities for these values of Xexceed 0.95. The latter is the probability of


deciding to restrict land development whenthe ecosystem is incompatible with recov-ery (power of the test). For 5 < X < 8, pos-terior probabilities are between the Type Ierror (0.05) and power of the test (0.95),which indicates inconclusive or ambiguousevidence about the most likely state of theNCDE with respect to grizzly bear recovery.The decision of whether or not to restrictland development is ambiguous for 5 < X <8.

Ambiguous decisions can be eliminat-ed using a Bayes action. The latter mini-

mizes the expected loss or equivalentlymaximizes the expected gain over all possi-ble actions with respect to the posteriorprobability distribution. If aj is selectedwhen the ecosystem state is Oi, then expect-ed loss is L(aj, Oi), or equivalently expectedgain is G(aj, Oi) = –L(aj, Oi) where i, j = 1, 2.The Bayes action is determined by compar-ing the Bayes gain (BG) (Morgan andHenrion 1990) for the two managementactions using the hypothetical expectedgains shown in Table 2. (The BG is aweighted average of the gains for an action


Table 1. Hypothetical likelihoods that X areas out of 12 have high rates of grizzly bear mortality for ecosystem states OI andOC, posterior probabilities for OI, and associated land development decision.

with weights given by the posterior proba-bilities for ecosystem states.) For X = 8 (i.e.,one of the values of X for which the deci-sion is ambiguous), BGs for a1 and a2 are:

BG(a1) = p(OI|X = 8) G(a1, OI) + p(OC|X = 8) G(a1, OC) = $353

BG(a2) = p(OI|X = 8) G(a2, OI) + p(OC|X = 8) G(a2, OC) = –$1,275

The Bayes action is a1 if BG(a1) > BG(a2), ora2 if BG(a2) > BG(a1). Therefore, a1 (restrict-ing land development) is the Bayes actionfor X = 8. BGs and Bayes actions for all pos-sible values of X are given in Table 3. HI isnot rejected and the Bayes action is not torestrict land development (a2) for X < 6. HI

is rejected and the Bayes action is to restrictland development (a1) for X > 7.

Table 3 represents hypothetical resultsfor one pseudo-experiment. Ideally, AM forgrizzly bear recovery should be implement-ed as a sequence of pseudo-experiments.To illustrate the procedure, let X = 6 for thefirst experiment. If the hypothetical resultsfor the first experiment are as shown inTable 3, then HI is rejected for X = 6 and

land development restrictions are notimposed. Suppose land development con-tinues after the first experiment is complet-ed prompting the decision-maker to con-duct a second experiment—say, five yearsafter the first one. The posterior probabilityfrom the first experiment, p(OI|X=6) =0.284, becomes the prior probability of OI

for the second experiment. Since the bene-fits and costs of restricting land develop-ment are likely to change over time, expect-ed gains (see Table 2) should be updatedeach time a new experiment is conducted.Suppose the second experiment favors non-rejection of HI. This implies land develop-ment should be restricted. These hypothet-ical results indicate mortality rates for griz-zly bear worsened in the five-year periodbetween the first and second experiments.If financially feasible, the pseudo-experi-ments should continue at least until thespecies is recovered.

The NRC report on recovering theMissouri River Ecosystem recommendsformation of a “representative stakeholdercommittee to develop a basinwide strategy,conduct assessments, review plans, andprovide oversight of the implementation of


Table 2. Hypothetical expected gains for a1 and a2 with ecosystem states OC and OI.

adaptive management initiatives” and col-laborative involvement of a broad range ofstakeholders in adaptive management of theMissouri River ecosystem (National Re-search Council 2002b). Similarly, Gunder-son et al. (1995) recognize that “involve-ment and education of people who are partof the ecosystem as crucial to buildingresilient solutions and removing gridlock.”Prato (2003) suggests forming an adaptivemanagement working group for theWaterton–Glacier International Peace Park.Since grizzly bear recovery is of interest to awide range of stakeholders, it would beworthwhile to form an AM working groupto facilitate recovery of grizzly bear in the

NCDE. The working group would evaluateexperimental results and decisions aboutwhether or not to restrict land develop-ment; compare the social, economic, andecological consequences of restricting landdevelopment; and recommend specificways to restrict land development when jus-tified by the pseudo-experiments.

Summary and conclusionsManagement of national park ecosys-

tems is challenging because ecosystems facea multiplicity of threats and impacts, manyof which are external to the park but inter-nal to the greater ecosystem in which thepark is located. In addition, management of


Table 3. Hypothetical Bayes gains and Bayes posterior decisions for all possible values of X.

national park ecosystems is subject to mul-tiple sources of uncertainty. National parkmanagers in North America have beenencouraged to develop strategies andactions to protect natural resources and val-ues from external threats.

AM has been used or recommendedfor use in managing national park ecosys-tems when there is uncertainty regardingthe state of the ecosystem and ecosystemresponses to management actions. Thebasic premise of AM is that managementactions need to be experimental due toimperfect understanding of ecologicalprocesses. Although passive AM is relative-ly simple and inexpensive to apply, the lackof replication and randomization of treat-ments renders the knowledge it providesabout ecosystem states and ecosystemresponses to management actions unreli-able. Active AM views management actionsas treatments in statistically valid experi-ments that replicate and randomize treat-ments, and generate data suitable for testinghypotheses about the state of an ecosystemand ecosystem responses to managementactions. Some prerequisites for active AMare unlikely to be satisfied.

Land development in the NCDE hasaccelerated habitat loss and degradation forgrizzly bear, which is a threatened species inthe NCDE. Active AM experiments areimpractical for managing grizzly bear recov-ery. The hypothetical example presentedhere conducts pseudo-experiments thatinvolve two ecosystem states, two compet-ing hypotheses, and two managementactions for bear recovery. Pseudo-experi-ments provide data on the number of sam-pled areas in the NCDE having unaccept-able rates of bear mortality (X). Bayes’ theo-rem is used to calculate posterior probabili-

ties that combine the data with prior proba-bilities of ecosystem states, and likelihoodfunctions for X given the ecosystem state isincompatible with recovery. Posterior prob-abilities are used to decide whether or notto restrict land development in the NCDEor implement another policy in order torecover grizzly bear. The hypothetical ex-ample leads to ambiguous decisions aboutecosystem states and whether or not toimpose restrictions on land developmentfor certain values of X.

Ambiguous decisions can be eliminat-ed by determining the Bayes action, whichminimizes the expected loss or, equivalent-ly, maximizes the expected gain over all pos-sible actions with respect to the posteriorprobability distribution. The Bayes actionis that which has the highest Bayes gain(BG). The latter is a weighted average of thegains for an action with weights given by theposterior probabilities for ecosystem states.Determination of the Bayes action requiresinformation on the expected gains with dif-ferent management actions. Implementingactive AM with Bayesian statistics entailsconducting sequential pseudo-experimentsin which the posterior probability from oneexperiment becomes the prior probabilityfor the subsequent experiment.

It is best to implement AM with theassistance of a working group that reviewsexperimental results; evaluates the social,economic, and ecological consequences ofrestricting land development; and recom-mends policies to restrict land developmentwhen justified by experimental results.National park managers, community plan-ners, scientists, environmental groups, anddevelopers are likely candidates for mem-bership in an AM working group for grizzlybear recovery.


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Part One: A brief history of Partners inParks

I have had a passion for national parkssince 1967. I joined and eventually becamepresident of the Cave Research Foundation,which was exploring, mapping, and con-ducting research in Mammoth Cave Na-tional Park and four other cave parks undera national agreement signed by the NPSdirector. This was a sweet deal for the all-volunteer foundation and for the parks. Wecavers got to work in some of the most ex-ceptional caves in the country; the man-agers of the parks received excellent maps,credible research reports, and other assis-tance. This partnership model should workin other parks.

The concept of Partners in Parks. InSeptember 1987, I met with NPS DirectorWilliam Penn Mott to present Partners inParks. The initial concept was to create asmall office at NPS headquarters to developprivate-sector partnerships with individualparks in support of natural resource re-search and management projects. After con-sulting with other NPS managers, I decidedthat making Partners in Parks a private non-

profit organization was more practicable.In January 1988, I presented Director

Mott with a new vision of Partners in Parks.Working in partnership with the Park Ser-vice, it would meet special needs of thenational parks and objectives of private-sec-tor professionals by: (1) establishing long-term partnerships in specific parks involv-ing multiple projects, (2) establishing short-term projects, (3) assisting existing volun-teer organizations, (4) organizing volunteergroups to work on major NPS objectives,and (5) encouraging donation of profes-sional services. Director Mott turned toCarol Aten, director of the NPS PolicyOffice, who was part of our meeting, andsaid, “Help this lady become successful.”And she did, in many ways.

Getting started. During our first threeyears, we met with numerous park man-agers, searching for a common understand-ing of research and resource managementneeds that would attract competent volun-teers. At the same time, we were challengingthese same managers to be comfortable withthe concept of someone outside their staffdoing serious work in their park. Partners


Partners in Parks: 1988–2006

Sarah G. Bishop

AFTER 18 YEARS OF WORKING IN PARTNERSHIP WITH NATIONAL PARKS, Partners in Parks cameto a close in March 2006. We have greatly enjoyed creating educational opportunities innational parks for volunteers and students. We have worked with numerous National ParkService professionals, who have engaged our interest in and support for their work. Our vol-unteer and internship projects are notable. Several of our interns now work for the ParkService. We have achieved our mission to show national park managers how to engage stu-dents and volunteers in research and preservation projects. In the following pages is our his-tory and a tutorial on how we developed and managed internships, our most important con-tribution to national parks. We hope you will benefit from our experience.

for resource management seemed attractive.The concept of research partners was not.

Our initial objective was to develop anenthusiasm among park managers for part-nerships. Then we could introduceresource management partnerships withsupervised volunteers at receptive parks.

Our first product was a manual aboutcreating partnerships, which we presentedat an NPS training workshop. We publisheda revised version for resource managers onmilitary installations. We presented work-shops based on these manuals six timesbetween 1991 and 1995. Other publica-tions included case studies on biospherereserves, a videotape and handbook onarchaeological site monitoring, anothervideotape and manual on using volunteersfor exotic plant control, and guidelines forhelping park staff and friends groups workwell together.

For a few years we engaged members ofthe Arnold Air Society, the Air Force Re-serve Officer Training Corps honor society,in resource management projects in sixnational parks. Some groups were moreproductive than others. We were beginningto learn how to help parks form good part-nerships.

The year 1994 saw the beginning ofour relationship with the NPS AmericanBattlefield Protection Program. (See belowfor more details.) Again, some projects weremore successful than others and so welearned more about appropriate ways toassist national parks.

Developing our abilities. We capital-ized on what had worked best in developingpartnerships. We applied that knowledge tonew projects in different subject areas andlocations. We increased the size of ourBoard of Directors, developed new spon-sors, and moved the main Partners in Parks

office to Colorado. In 1997, we electedCarol Aten as chair of the Board. She andher successors, Michele Frome, DavidKikel, Peter Brinkley, and Elliot Gruber,gave the organization good, independentleadership, allowing me, the president, andmy staff to focus on building our programsand projects.

Our most productive years began withthe new century. Two grants allowed us toexplore fund-raising and marketing prac-tices. The NPS continued to support ourbattlefield program. The National Fish andWildlife Foundation and two other founda-tions awarded grants for a new project atZion National Park. Several local organiza-tions supported herpetological studies andother volunteer projects in Rock Creek Parkand at other sites in the National CapitalRegion. We had projects in a sufficientnumber of states to be eligible for Com-bined Federal Campaign support.

We initiated a senior scientists’ pro-gram in the National Capital Region andplaced talented folks in several parks. Theirwork was outstanding and highly praised,but our program was short-lived. A neworganization, the Environmental Alliancefor Senior Involvement (EASI), was createdwith significant funding from the Environ-mental Protection Agency. Partners in Parksturned its attention to opportunities forother age groups.

Gaining focus. From these develop-ments, two new ventures emerged: a long-term volunteer partnership at Zion, and aninternship program to expand our battle-field program.

A model volunteer partnership.Beginning in 1999, we planned and raisedfunds for an exotic plant control and publiceducation project at Zion. We hired a proj-ect manager to recruit and organize Zion


Partners, a volunteer group, and to managethe project until Zion Partners was able todo that on its own. The volunteers set towork collecting and propagating nativeseed, managing the greenhouse, removingnon-native plants, restoring native habitats,developing native plant gardens at localschools, helping develop and present anative plant curriculum for fourth graders,and participating in joint ventures withlocal conservation groups on adjacent pub-lic lands. Of particular note is the Chil-dren’s Garden at the Kiln Heritage site onthe Dixie National Forest. Zion Partnershelped elementary students draw andmount illustrations of native plants along anature trail at the site (Figure 1).

This was the ideal volunteer partner-ship. Funding was adequate to get it started.The local project manager worked well withpark staff (the superintendent was hisneighbor) and successfully recruited volun-teers of all ages and capabilities. Park staffestablished projects that needed to be done

and taught propagation methodology. Ateacher who joined Zion Partners persuad-ed her principal to have the group create anative plant garden at the school and devel-op a curriculum around it. Many volunteersparticipated in projects just a few times,while a core group continues to manage thepark’s greenhouse and native plant nursery.

An introduction to internships. In1998 we teamed up with the National ParksConservation Association to design andmanage the first two years of a battlefieldinternship program. Our first 12 college-level interns were mentored by park staff atfour Civil War sites and one RevolutionaryWar site in Virginia and North Carolina.Although our volunteer projects were suc-cessful and satisfying, it soon become clearthat Partners in Parks’ greatest contributionto national parks would be through itsinternship programs. While personal rea-sons brought Partners in Parks to the townof Paonia in western Colorado, the oppor-tunity to focus on park needs in the verydiverse Intermountain Region was extreme-ly attractive. It ultimately proved most fortu-itous in developing our successful intern-ship models.

Focus on internships. As a small non-profit, Partners in Parks either had tobecome larger to maintain a diversity of pro-grams, or concentrate in one area. Wedecided to concentrate our programs andprojects in the Intermountain Region, witha preferred focus on developing intern proj-ects. We maintained a national presencewith our battlefield interns program. Part-ners in Parks intern programs were de-signed to appeal to a culturally diverse stu-dent population. We recruited from collegesand universities that supported many differ-ent types of students. We insisted that allour interns receive a stipend, modest


Figure 1. Trail sign in Children’s Garden, Dixie NationalForest—a Zion Partners project.

though it may be, so that students of lessereconomic means would have an opportuni-ty to participate.

Battlefield internships program.Partners in Parks had a 12-year partnershipwith the American Battlefield ProtectionProgram (ABPP). We started out helpingpark friends groups and then moved on tomanaging interns. During the final twoyears of our most satisfying relationship, weoperated as a national partner under acooperative agreement. While the ABPPgrants and subsequent cooperative agree-ment precluded our working inside nation-al parks, we found lots of opportunities towork on adjacent lands of importance to theparks.

Partners in Parks placed highly skilledinterns at significant battlefield sites acrossthe country. By the end of 2005, Partners inParks had supported 31 interns at 18 battle-field sites in 12 states. Intern projects inclu-ded producing nine National Register nom-inations, statements of significance, or relat-ed research; three community outreachprojects; two interpretation-related proj-ects; and surveys of boundaries, natural fea-tures, cultural/historic features, adjacentlands, and species. All but one of the proj-ects were completed and considered highlysuccessful.

Mesa Verde National Park intern-ships. In 2001, Partners in Parks estab-lished an internship program with FortLewis College and Mesa Verde NationalPark. Four interns were placed in the parkin 2002. By the end of 2005, the programhad supported 30 interns in four years.Partners in Parks’ internship program pro-vided exceptional educational opportuni-ties for Fort Lewis College’s most talentedstudents, while helping Mesa Verde meetunmet needs in its archaeological site con-

servation program and related programsthrough professionally supervised intern-ships. We were particularly interested inrecruiting Native American students whosecultural connection with the park mayenrich both their experience and that oftheir park mentors.

Master’s degree fellowship program.In 2003, with Partners in Parks’ assistance,Glen Canyon National Recreation Areareceived Department of the Interior Com-munity Conservation Initiative (CCI) fund-ing. The park received a project continua-tion grant in 2004 before the CCI programlost its appropriation. These funds support-ed thesis work for two master’s degree fel-lows at Northern Arizona University. ForPartners in Parks, supporting fellowshipswas a logical extension of supportinginternships.

Part Two: Tutorial on successful internships

Partners in Parks has designed andmanaged three models for internships. Thebattlefield internship model featured manyparks working with interns from manyschools. Usually one intern was placed withone park. A few parks managed several in-terns over time. The Mesa Verde internshipmodel involves one school located near thepark with a group of interns working in thepark. The internship program is now begin-ning its fifth season. The master’s degreefellowship model supports a student con-ducting thesis research over a period of 18months in the park.

Battlefield internship program. Theprogram goal is to provide career-enhanc-ing internship opportunities to talentedgraduate and upper-level undergraduatestudents in national parks and related areaswith battlefield themes. They are paid posi-


tions, for which interns are strongly encour-aged to seek academic credit. Students areselected through a competitive process.They are mentored by park staff during thecourse of their internships, and report to afaculty advisor for academic requirements.The program was funded under a coopera-tive agreement with the ABPP.

Partners in Parks’ battlefield internshipprogram placed students with course workin the area of the internship project at bat-tlefield sites around the country. Park staffprepared project descriptions that includedstudent eligibility criteria, such as academiclevel, major, specific courses taken, physicalchallenges, and any other special require-ments. The intern project stated a goal thatcould be completed within a single 400-hour internship. If it was an on-going proj-ect, then specific objectives were estab-lished that could be met in one internship.We looked for a staff member who was avail-able, capable and willing to mentor theintern. Because of their academic level, andthe nature of the projects, most internsneeded little supervision.

We prepared a job announcement andadvertised our internship positions throughour website, elsewhere on the Internet, andthrough college and university departmentsand intern placement offices. We recruitedat colleges and universities with majors inthe internship subject area that were locatednear the project. Interested studentsapplied to Partners in Parks.

We reviewed the applications and sentthe best qualified to the park for selection.Partners in Parks hired the intern with anemployment agreement that was signed byall concerned parties. It describes the proj-ect, the intern’s relationship with the parkand Partners in Parks, arrangements forpayment of stipends and expenses, and

worker’s compensation and tort liabilityinsurance coverage.

We strongly encouraged all our internsto seek academic credit for their work. Theinterns are responsible for making theappropriate arrangements with their collegeor university. The park mentors assure thecredit-worthiness of the project and that theintern’s work was well done.

Under our cooperative agreement withABPP, we encouraged more parks to submitproject ideas than we had funds to support.With a high probability of a yearly obliga-tion of new funds, we were confident wewould eventually meet everyone’s needs,which we did.

Our interns worked full- or part-timefor 400 hours over a period of 10 to 20weeks, and received a $3,400 stipend. Wealso provided housing and travel allowancesas may needed and as funds allowed. Anyother project expenses or needs, such ascopying or postage, access to computers,etc., were supported by the park or by us.We paid the stipend and expenses in threeinstallments upon receipt of progress andexpense reports and time logs. As eachinternship was completed, Partners in Parksprovided a copy of the final report andother products to ABPP, along with a finan-cial summary.

Mesa Verde internship program. Theprogram goal is to provide career-enhanc-ing internship opportunities to talentedupper-level undergraduate students fromFort Lewis College at Mesa Verde NationalPark. The internships are regarded as thecapstone of a student’s academic program.These internships are paid summer posi-tions, which receive academic credit. Stu-dents are selected through a competitiveprocess. They are mentored by park staffduring the course of their internships, and


report to a faculty advisor for academicrequirements. The program was funded bythe Colorado State Historical Fund, FortLewis College Foundation, Mesa Verde Na-tional Park, the Mesa Verde Museum Asso-ciation, and others.

The first step in pursuing this type ofinternship program is to secure funding.Partners in Parks successfully competed forColorado State Historical Fund matchinggrants over a period of three years. Thepark’s summer-hire funds and support fromthe college’s foundation provide the major-ity of the required match.

The yearly process for recruiting andplacing interns began in the fall. Projectdescriptions were presented to the desig-nated college administrative partner (a deanat Fort Lewis College) and college faculty sothat they might start developing interestamong their students to participate in theprogram. If a project generated interestamong qualified students and if funds wereavailable to support it, it would go forwardthe following summer. The ideal intern isone who has completed the junior year witha high grade point average and with suffi-cient course work completed in the subjectarea of a project. Faculty encouragedyounger students to plan their academicstudy to make them eligible later on. Anintern fair was held in early February.College faculty advertised the event andencouraged student attendance. Park staffwith potential projects attended and dis-cussed their needs with and interviewedinterested students. Potential interns pre-pared an application indicating which proj-ects they were interested in. College facultyand the dean reviewed the applications,sending those that merited further consid-eration to park staff. Park staff prepared alist of students who they would like as

interns. Further interviews were arranged asnecessary.

To encourage the most qualified stu-dents to apply for the internship program,two named internships have been estab-lished. The Robert and Florence Lister In-ternship recognizes an outstanding studentwho has demonstrated a strong interest inhistoric preservation. The Raymond BegayInternship will recognize academic excel-lence. To be sure these high standards aremet, the named internships are awardedonly when there are truly worthy students.

Partners in Parks hired the intern withan employment agreement that was signedby all concerned parties. It describes theproject, the intern’s relationship with thepark and Partners in Parks, arrangementsfor payment of stipends and expenses, andworker’s compensation and tort liabilityinsurance coverage. We also prepared andupdated yearly an intern handbook, whichdescribes the overall program, its history,expectations of interns, and a description ofPartners in Parks.

The interns met as a group in April atthe college to orient them to what is expect-ed of a participant in the Mesa Verde intern-ship program. They must be registered forthe summer internship course. Early in Maythe interns met as a group at the park to getacquainted with their mentors, talk aboutpark rules, learn how to find their mentor orwork station, and decide on travel and lodg-ing arrangements. Two weeks of orienta-tion—the same as is given to seasonal inter-preters—are required.

Each intern had a park staff mentor.How closely the two worked togetherdepended on the nature of the project.Interns working in backcountry surveycrews were closely observed. Those whomight be collecting information from the


archives for a new publication worked moreon their own.

It is ideal for interns to begin and endtheir projects on the same schedule. MesaVerde designated one camping area at dis-counted rates for volunteers and interns.The interns were encouraged to camp dur-ing the work week to save on travel costs. Avery nice benefit was that the interns got toknow each other better and learn abouttheir projects. Halfway through the intern-ship, the students presented a progressreport to each other, their park mentors andother senior staff, college faculty, and theprogram administrator. This is probably thehigh point of the internship experience.

Although the program administrator isthe principal administrative partner, the col-lege and the park also have project adminis-tration responsibilities. The academic part-ner’s primary responsibility is assuring thecredit-worthiness of the park projects andthe academic preparation of the prospectiveinterns. The college faculty supervises theinterns, assigns grades, and evaluates theprogram annually. The park selects andmanages the projects and interns. MesaVerde made clear that its responsibility wasto mentor the students, not supervise them.Because the interns were not employees ofthe park, this distinction is probably impor-tant. Partners in Parks and Mesa Verde Na-tional Park signed a cooperative agreementthat allowed the park to obligate its internand summer-hire funds to Partners inParks. As Partners in Parks interns, theyreceived the same $3,400 stipend andmoney for expenses, regardless of thesource of funds. Neither the park nor thecollege were burdened with hiring theinterns. Partners in Parks considered itsinterns independent contractors, and pro-vided them with an Internal Revenue Ser-

vice Form 1099 as a report of earnings. Ouruncomplicated approach to dealing withthe economics of interns saved the otherpartners time and money.

As the provider of the funds that sup-ported the internship program, Partners inParks required assurance of the quality andcompleteness of the projects. The internsreceived partial payments twice during theirproject. They received their final paymentwhen their park mentor and faculty advisoreach approved the product of their intern-ship.

When the interns completed theirwork, they submitted it to their mentor. Thementor reviewed and evaluated the qualityand completeness of the report, asking forcorrections or some further work as need-ed. Except for grammatical corrections, andsometimes the need for greater detail, internfinal reports were usually well received. Theclose working relationship they had withpark staff all but guaranteed a high-qualityproduct. The mentors sent the internreports and their evaluation to the facultyadvisor and the program administrator. Thefaculty advisors sent their comments andapproval to the program administrator andthe interns received their final payment.

Partners in Parks collected programevaluations from the interns, park staff, andfaculty advisors. These evaluations haveproved helpful in solving logistical prob-lems and program-related difficulties. Oneexample was establishing a single start datefor the summer internships and encourag-ing camping. The interns benefited frompeer support. Another example was send-ing all the interns to the orientation trainingfor seasonal interpreters. All had the sameunderstanding of Mesa Verde National Parkand what was expected of them.

Partners in Parks sent a final program


report to all entities that had funded theprogram. The final step is an early fall meet-ing when the program administrator, col-lege faculty and dean, and park staff meet toreview the previous internship season andplan the next year’s projects.

Master’s degree fellowship program.The purpose of this program is to provide aresearch fellowship opportunity within anational park for a master’s degree student.As part of the agreement with the park, thestudent will accomplish a related resourcemanagement objective.

We began a fellowship project at GlenCanyon National Recreation Area with twoconsecutive CCI matching grants, whichwere obligated to Partners in Parks toadminister under our NPS cooperativeagreement. Partners in Parks helped draftthe first application. We raised funds fromUtah foundations and worked with parkstaff to arrange for in-kind support from vol-unteer groups. Other in-kind matches camefrom a partner university in the form ofoverhead foregone and the value of the fel-low’s faculty advisor supervisory time.

The project was to remove ravennagrass and a non-native crayfish from a sidecanyon as the first steps toward recoveringthe natural habitat. The research part of theproject was to determine the appropriatemethodology for accomplishing habitatrestoration. Two successive master’s degreestudents were recruited to conduct theirthesis research under the supervision of apark staff member—the principal investiga-tor—and the students’ thesis advisor.

Partners in Parks advertised the initialresearch fellowship opportunity among thethree Cooperative Ecosystem Studies Unitsin the NPS Intermountain Region and onein the Western Region. The NPS researchcoordinator at Northern Arizona University

(NAU), which happens to be the closestgraduate university to the park, helped usfind candidates. We transferred funds to theuniversity to pay for the students’ stipendand project-related expenses, half of theirtuition, health care and benefits, and partialoverhead expenses of the university.

The park program officer and the fac-ulty advisors of the candidates for the fel-lowship determined the eligibility and suit-ability of the research fellows. Partners inParks requested a formal application fromthe candidates and then awarded them a fel-lowship to be administered by NAU.

Partners in Parks’ role in the projectafter helping recruit the initial fellow wasstrictly financial. We functioned as a pass-through for the federal grant, sending themoney to NAU, which was the employer ofrecord for the student. Partners in Parks’financial agreement was with the Office ofGrant and Contract Services at NAU. Thisoffice has to confirm that the agreed-uponin-kind match from the university is met.We raised funds to support our costs forbeing a partner in this project.

The program manager at Glen Canyonhad the first-line responsibility for supervis-ing the student’s work. He ensured thatpark staff knew what the student was doingand when and where he was in the park.The program manager reviewed andapproved all progress reports and otherproject products. He also served on the sec-ond student’s thesis committee. The stu-dent’s faculty advisor closely monitoredproject work from an academic point ofview. He also ensured the student was paidmonthly, and kept track of expenses.

The student’s research report is sub-mitted to the park program manager forapproval. It forms the basis of his master’sthesis, which his thesis committee


approves. The park program manager andthe student’s faculty advisor work togetherto assure the project has met agreed-uponobjectives and that the resulting reportmeets park and academic standards. Thiscommunication is greatly facilitated whenthe program manager serves on the stu-dent’s thesis committee. Partners in Parkshas the responsibility for assuring all proj-ect funds are properly spent and all match-ing requirements have been met.

Passing the Partners in Parks torchEarly on in our partnership venture

with national parks, I was asked, “What areyou doing that the parks cannot do forthemselves?” The answer, then as now, is“Nothing.” There is nothing magical aboutfinding interns or volunteer partners to dosubstantive research and preservation proj-ects in parks. It just takes a commitment todo so and a willingness to do the prepara-tion, administration, supervision, and fol-low-up that will be necessary.

Look at the program and project exam-ples above. What fits your needs? Designgood projects that are not complicated. Ifthey have multiple objectives that can bemet over time, then you won’t be spendingall your time designing new projects. Besure senior park managers as well as theproposed staff mentor are strong supportersof interns or volunteers. Your partners need

to feel that what they are doing for the parkis worthwhile, because it is.

Don’t cut corners on financial supportfor interns. Stipends make it possible forstudents, who must earn money to attendcollege, to participate in a very valuable pro-fessional experience. Providing funds fortravel or lodging expenses allows non-localstudents to participate.

Don’t let the usual excuses stop youfrom starting an intern program. Therewards are too great to ignore. You getwork done, the students receive invaluableprofessional experience, and the impact onyour staff can be great (Figure 2).


Figure 2. “Most importantly, our crews gained a real moraleboost from the enthusiastic responses the students had to thework we do.” —Mesa Verde National Park archaeologist

AcknowledgmentsMy thanks to everyone who has contributed to the success of Partners in Parks. I partic-

ularly want to recognize four groups: the National Park Service—too numerous to mentionthem all; Board members—Carol Aten, Peter Brinkley, Russell Cahill, Patricia Cahn, RobertCahn, Richard Duesterhaus, David Fraley, Linda Frazier, Michele Frome, Elliot Gruber, T.Destry Jarvis, Joyce Kelly, David Kikel, Dominic Monetta, Loretta Neumann, BertrandPhillips, Cleve Pinnix, Patricia Pride, Paul Pritchard, Richard Smith, Richard Spees, BillWade; staff members—Catherine Zachman, Richard Duesterhaus, and Michael Empey; and,most especially, Kathleen Hunter and William Bishop.

Sarah G. Bishop, P.O. Box 130, Paonia, Colorado 81428; [email protected]

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