Culture, Nature, Arts: An Integrated Management Model

Abstract

This article introduces a shared landscape model that integrates the management of culture and nature, while focusing on the intangible of heritage as a driver of policy development. It considers the relationship of the intangible heritage and the associated historic fabric as symbiotic and promotes a balance among cultural value, conservation, and development. Engagement with the intangible is achieved through a sense of place experienced within the landscape/seascape, which is used as a process to inform negotiations between diverse stakeholder priorities. The process of art practice embraces the experience of a sense of place and is used in the broad context of self-expression, without artistic critique or medium boundaries. The model brings together culture, nature, and arts (CNA) in a management process that breaks down the Western management dichotomy assessing culture and nature under separate but collaborative structures. By breaking down this dichotomy, landscape management is shifted closer to traditional Indigenous perspectives that embrace the holistic approach of considering the entirety of life and surroundings as integrated and entwines arts practice within the management process. Acknowledging the diversity of cultural sense of place delivers more equitable and informed negotiations that can identify priorities for conservation and cultural maintenance.