Reconciling Nature and Culture in a Global Context?
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RESEARCH REPORT Reconciling Nature and Culture in a Global Context? Lessons from the World Heritage List Sandra Pannell Rainforest CRC Headquarters at James Cook University, Smithfield, Cairns Postal address: PO Box 6811, Cairns, QLD 4870, AUSTRALIA Phone: (07) 4042 1246 Fax: (07) 4042 1247 Email: [email protected] http://www.rainforest-crc.jcu.edu.au The Cooperative Research Centre for Tropical Rainforest Ecology and Management (Rainforest CRC) is a research partnership involving the Cooperative Research Centre for Tropical Rainforest Ecology and Management Commonwealth and Queensland State Governments, the Wet Tropics Management Authority, the tourism industry, Aboriginal groups, the CSIRO, James Cook University, Griffith University and The University of Queensland. RECONCILING NATURE AND CULTURE IN A GLOBAL CONTEXT? LESSONS FROM THE WORLD HERITAGE LIST Sandra Pannell Rainforest CRC, James Cook University, Cairns Established and supported under the Australian Cooperative Research Centres Program © Cooperative Research Centre for Tropical Rainforest Ecology and Management. ISBN 0 86443 766 8 This work is copyright. The Copyright Act 1968 permits fair dealing for study, research, news reporting, criticism or review. Selected passages, tables or diagrams may be reproduced for such purposes provided acknowledgment of the source is included. Major extracts of the entire document may not be reproduced by any process without written permission of the Chief Executive Officer, Cooperative Research Centre for Tropical Rainforest Ecology and Management. Published by the Cooperative Research Centre for Tropical Rainforest Ecology and Management. Further copies may be requested from the Cooperative Research Centre for Tropical Rainforest Ecology and Management, James Cook University, PO Box 6811, Cairns, QLD 4870, Australia. This publication should be cited as: Pannell, S. (2006) Reconciling Nature and Culture in a Global Context? Lessons from the World Heritage List. Cooperative Research Centre for Tropical Rainforest Ecology and Management. Rainforest CRC, Cairns, Australia (114 pp.). Cover Images © (Top) Komodo Dragon. Image: Roger Wilkinson. (Centre) The cultural landscape of Val D’Orcia. Image: Roger Wilkinson. (Bottom) Historic Centre of Macau. Image: Roger Wilkinson. May 2006 Layout by Birgit Kuehn For copies of this document, please visit www.rainforest-crc.jcu.edu.au The views expressed in this publication do not necessarily represent those of the Rainforest CRC. While every effort has been made to ensure that the information is accurate at the time of printing, the Rainforest CRC does not accept responsibility for any errors or omissions. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander People should be warned that this document contains images of deceased persons. Reconciling Nature and Culture in a Global Context? Lessons from the World Heritage List ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This study was made possible by a grant from the Cooperative Research Centre for Tropical Rainforest Ecology and Management (Rainforest CRC), James Cook University and the Department of the Environment and Heritage, Canberra. I am particularly indebted to Professor Nigel Stork, Director of the Rainforest CRC, and his unreserved support for this research project. I would also like to acknowledge the research assistance, intellectual input and ongoing interest of Daniel Vachon in the preparation of this report. My interest in World Heritage, and particularly the nature-culture paradigm that underscores UNESCO’s World Heritage Convention, was initially fuelled by conversations with my colleague Joseph Reser. I would like to take the opportunity here to thank Joe for our many stimulating exchanges. Particular thanks also go to my colleagues, Joan Bentrupperbäumer, Roger Wilkinson and Dermot Smyth for their respective contributions in the form of suggested reading material, photographic images of World Heritage sites visited in the course of this study, and coffee shop chats. Last, but not least, I would like to acknowledge the invaluable editorial input of Birgit Kuehn and Shannon Hogan, members of the ‘Communications Program’ at the Rainforest CRC. Dr Sandra Pannell Leader, Program 7 Rainforest CRC i Reconciling Nature and Culture in a Global Context? Lessons from the World Heritage List CONTENTS Acknowledgements.................................................................................................................i Colour Plates .........................................................................................................................iv Maps.....................................................................................................................................v Figures ................................................................................................................................ ix Chapter One – Introduction...................................................................................................1 Chapter Two – The Wet Tropics World Heritage Area: A Confusion of Categories? ......5 Natural Sciences and ‘Dead’ Nature ....................................................................................6 Whose Nature, Whose Culture?.........................................................................................10 The Production of Natural Subjects....................................................................................10 The Hegemony of Nature ...................................................................................................14 The Learning Curve of the World Heritage List ..................................................................16 Chapter Three – World Heritage as a Global Public Good? A Case Study from the Island of Komodo..................................................................................................17 ‘Here There be Dragons’ – Discovering Dragons and the Creation of Media-genic Megafauna.................................................................................................19 Culture Wars, Part I............................................................................................................21 The ‘Discovery’ of the Ata Modo ........................................................................................23 ‘New Nature’.......................................................................................................................27 Culture Wars, Part II...........................................................................................................32 The Good, the Bad and the Ugly: A Postscript from Komodo National Park, 2005............38 Chapter Four – The Convention and World History..........................................................47 The Military Fortress of Suomenlinna: A Case of Post-colonial Remembering?................48 The Historic Centre of Macau.............................................................................................51 Historic Centres on the World Heritage List: Restoring and Rebuilding What?..................56 Australian Heritage and the Colonial Experience...............................................................59 Chapter Five – ‘Natural’ Cultural Landscapes: The Case of Val d’Orcia, Tuscany........61 The European Tradition of Landscape ...............................................................................62 World Heritage Cultural Landscapes..................................................................................64 Val d’Orcia Reconsidered...................................................................................................66 Chapter Six – Conclusion: Reconciling Nature and Culture?..........................................71 “No Difference, They Both Together, Nature and Culture”.................................................72 Caught in Culture: More Lessons from the World Heritage List .........................................74 … and the Final Lesson from the World Heritage List........................................................76 References............................................................................................................................79 iii Sandra Pannell COLOUR PLATES LIST OF MAPS Map 1: Location of World Heritage sites featured in the report .........................................v Map 2: No ‘Terra Nullius’ – Komodo Island, a dense landscape of named places........... vi Map 3: Zoning system and buffer areas in Komodo National Park, 25 Year Master Plan for Management, 2000-2025, Komodo National Park ..................... vii Map 4: The varied cultural heritage landscape of contemporary Macau .........................viii LIST OF FIGURES Figure 1: The Wet Tropics World Heritage Area, a vast natural expanse of evolutionary residues........................................................................................ ix Figure 2: ‘A fragile haven’, Wet Tropics Management Authority Poster............................... ix Figure 3: Wallaman Falls, identified as one of the features of “exceptional natural beauty” of the Wet Tropics World Heritage Area ...................................................x Figure 4: In Nature? ‘An Aboriginal Camp, Atherton Tableland’ ...........................................x Figure 5: Exhibition of a ‘completed Komodo lizard group’, Burden (1927b)....................... xi Figure 6: The ‘rugged landscape’ of Komodo National Park, 2005 ..................................... xi Figure 7: Komodo dragon scavenging for food at the Ranger Station,