The Protected Landscape Approach - Centre for Mediterranean ...

The Protected Landscape Approach: Linking Nature, Culture and Community
After the park was handed back to the traditional owners and the Uluru-Kata Tjuta Board of
Management was established, the priority given to cultural heritage increased substantially.
The second management plan, which was prepared in 1986 after the park had been nominated
for World Heritage listing for its natural values, clearly articulated the enormous cultural
importance to Aboriginal peoples of the landscapes within the park, as well as identifying more
traditional national park values and programmes.
The third management plan, completed in 1991, contains an even more overt manifesto
regarding the importance of cultural concerns (Uluru-Kata Tjuta Board of Management, 1991).
It seems that the previous, subtle statements on cultural heritage had not resulted in appro -
priate adjustment in either management practice, or perhaps more importantly, behaviour of
other stakeholders such as tour operators or visitors in general. The 1991 plan, while
superficially structured like any other protected area management plan, contained a major
new section [2: Tjukurpa (law) as a guide to management (pp.11–26)]. This new section
provided a renewed explicit priority for cultural heritage that was expressly designed to
underpin all other manage ment. At about the same time, the park was also re-nominated for
World Heritage listing under the cultural landscape criteria in addition to its already recognised
natural values.
In 1994, Uluru-Kata Tjuta became the second cultural landscape on the World Heritage List.
This honour provided international recognition of Tjukurpa as a major religious philo sophy
linking the Anangu traditional owners to their environment and as a tool for caring for country.
The listing represented years of work by Anangu to assert their role as custodians of their
traditional lands. In addition, at the request of the Anangu, the lands of the Park were referred to
by their traditional names Uluru and Kata Tjuta, rather than the non-Anangu names given by
nineteenth century European explorers.
The expansion of values by the World Heritage listing enabled a change in priorities at park
level. This is reflected in the current management plan, which states that acknowledgement of
the place as a cultural landscape is fundamental to the success of the joint management
arrangement. This 2000 plan details how traditional owners and the Australian government
work as partners by combining Anangu natural and cultural management skills with con -
ventional park practices (Uluru-Kata Tjuta Board of Management and Parks Australia, 2000).
For example, Aboriginal people learned how to patch burn the country from the Tjukurpa of
lungkata, the blue tongue lizard. Although modern methods are now used, the practice of
lighting small fires close together during the cool season continues to leave a mosaic of burnt
and unburnt areas. This traditional knowledge and practice have been adopted as a major
ecological management tool in the park. Tjukurpa also teaches about the care of rock holes and
other water sources (Environment Australia, 1999). This 2000 plan is the first to recognise the
primacy of cultural practice in land management by the traditional owners, and the bilingual
presentation of the plan highlights the fundamental concern of ensuring joint management. It
integrates cultural heritage concerns with natural heritage management. Monitoring will
demonstrate whether this aim is achieved (Lennon, 2000).
The 2001 Cultural Heritage Action Plan and Cultural Landscape Conservation Plan, which
operates under the 2000 Plan of Management, provides a more detailed operational guide for
the implementation of cultural site and landscape management programmes. It was compiled
through a series of community workshops in the park. This plan provides for the conservation
of the cultural values of specific sites, storylines and story places, including sacred sites,
210