Cultural Heritage and Social Values Assessment Vol ... - Parks Victoria

o why the place is important.VOLUME 4: VALUED PLACESValued places mapping at the Open House sessionsOver the five Open House sessions, 60 people participated in the valued places mappingprocess, and 86 detailed data sheets were completed, along with a larger number of initial placelists. These places ranged from specific sites such as significant trees within the parks, throughto whole parks or areas within them such as wetlands or landscapes.Our process sought to understand what people valued about each of these places. For example,people might value particular qualities of a place, such as its remoteness or pristine naturalcondition; or they might value a place for its recreational value, its accessibility or social history.Those who participated in the valued places were diverse, in their age and interests. Theyincluded Gunditjmara community members, anglers, four-wheel drivers, bird-watchers, horseriders,apiarists, bushwalkers, field naturalists, retired park rangers and others. Retired parkrangers proved to be a valuable source of information and we were able to do a forty minuteoral history interview with Sam Bruton at Portland.The Open House sessions provided a valuable snapshot of the social value of many differenttypes of places, and added a number of additional places to pre-existing lists. Furtherinformation has been gathered and valuable contacts made on a number of areas with sparseinformation to date that has been of great use in writing land use histories for these areas, suchas Dergholm.Participants appeared to really enjoy the opportunity to record places they valued, and manydocumented numerous places.11