Linking Culture and the Environment

R. Staiff 231
8
In a provocative essay Joel Snyder suggests that the rise of photography and the
national parks movement in the USA in the last quarter of the 19th century were
linked. The large audience of photography was instructed about a particular nature
aesthetic which happily coincided with the legislative moves to ‘protect’ nature from
development. Photography established a point of view about the scenic qualities of
‘nature’ (Snyder, 1994; see also, Horne, 1992). Photography, however, was – in the
USA, Australia and in Europe – building on an earlier 19th-century tradition of tourism,
nature and the picturesque (Wallach, 1993; also see Staiff, 1995). For a discussion
about aesthetics and nature in post-enlightenment western thinking see Soper (1995)
and for a recent analysis of landscape/nature and aesthetics in western art see
Andrews (1999). It can also be argued that national parks are equal to the ideology of
‘nation’ which is, of itself, a phenomenon grounded in culture. See Olwig (1996).
9
On the cultural inscription of nature in China, especially the aesthetics of nature,
see Cheng (1994), Clunas (1997), Crane (2000) and Liu and Capon (2000).
10
Suzuki and Knudtson (1992); Sutton (1988).
11
For example, more than 84% of the total visitation to Minnamurra Rainforest Centre
comes from the Sydney and Wollongong regions. These two cities have one of the
highest per capita ratios of non-English-speaking residents in Australia. A recent survey
revealed almost 1 in 5 visitors (18%) indicated their first language was not English.
Of these, two-thirds (61.7%) did not speak/understand or read English (29.4% and
32.3%, respectively). See Smith (1997a).
12
In a recent study of visitors to three National Parks in Argentina it was found that
the prime motivation for the visit (between 80% and 86% in a sample of 1200) was the
scenic beauty of the parks (Sheridan, 1999).
13
Exemplified in the work of Deborah Bird Rose. See Rose (1992, 1996).
14
It also requires a serious rethink about the content and the context of education in
protected areas and the issues that permeate through the selection and presentation of
that content. This has been addressed in an earlier paper where it was argued that the
content/context issue should be informed by a number of key questions: who are the
owners/custodians of these places? How are these places represented? Who speaks
for them? What is spoken? And who is listening to the speaking? (Staiff et al., 2002).
15
The notion of community stewardship of natural and cultural heritage sites has
become a major objective across the globe in an age of withering government
resources. See IUCN (1993), NPWS (NSW) (1998), ICOMOS (1999), Australian
Heritage Commission (1999) and Bushell and Eagles (2007).
16
For a lively interrogation of this complexity see Cronon (1996).
17
The vast array of discourses that press on to western ideas of nature/culture can be
gleaned from several publications, for example, those published within a 3-year period.
See Soper (1995), Descola and Palsson (1996), Eder (1996), Cronon (1996),
Robertson et al. (1996) and Macnaghten and Urry (1998). All these studies are interdisciplinary
but here the focus of the interest in the nature/culture relationship is firmly
within the humanities/social sciences. And this short list ignores the interest expressed
in allied disciplines where the culture/nature doublet certainly defines the field of study
but where a precise investigation of that relationship is not the key question being
addressed, for example, in art exhibition catalogues and art historical discourse (see
Andrews, 1999; Thomas, 1999; Waterlow and Mellick, 1997), in landscape studies
(see Cosgrove and Daniels, 1988; Mitchell, 1994), in landscape design (see Potteiger
and Purinton, 1998) and historical studies (see Schama, 1995). And all of these
groupings are in addition to the work done from within environmental science and
ecology (see Wilson, 1991; Simmons, 1993; Ghimire and Pimbert, 1997).
18
The third position is examined by Alf Hornborg in Descola and Palsson (1996).