| In the last two decades the National Park Service (NPS) has made significant strides vis-a-vis cultural landscape management. These include the development of the Park Cultural Landscapes Program, which has initiated the Cultural Landscapes Inventory (CLI), a common methodology for documenting cultural landscapes in the national park system. Despite advancements in diverse landscape-oriented programs, cultural landscapes in many of the National Parks---the "crown jewels" of the larger national park system---continue to receive far less attention than those in other units or than landscapes viewed as more "natural." This research examines how cultural landscapes are currently being managed in the national parks, with a focus on three components of the management process: inventory, treatment and interpretation. The work is based on analysis of CLI data to determine attributes (types, cultures, time periods) that predominate among properties that have received more attention thus far in the prioritization process. Through a case study of Rocky Mountain National Park and a survey of cultural landscape sites in numerous parks, the work also examines how properties that have come to be recognized as cultural landscapes by the CLI process are receiving treatment and interpretation. Results indicate that the inventory process in particular is perpetuating the nature/culture dichotomy that it set out to address, by focusing more on sites that conform to either the natural or cultural end of the spectrum and de-emphasizing "middle landscapes." Treatments do not fully extend to the landscape component of many sites but rather often focus more on the structures than the land itself. Interpretation too does not always fully convey the essence of nature-culture interactions at the heart of these sites. By bringing these issues to the forefront, this research aims to bridge the gap between theoretical concepts of cultural landscape preservation and their practical application in the United States' largest administrator of cultural landscapes. |
