The Interpreter's Dilemma and What Visitors Think About It
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The Interpreter’s Dilemma and what visitors think about it (Patrick Lehnes) 1 Introduction: an excursion on the Belchen Summit October, 12, 2000 on the Belchen Summit in the Southern Black Forest (in the very South-West of Germany): An international group of experts in Heritage Interpretation from Scotland, England, Germany, France, Slovakia and Austria are visiting the Belchen Discovery trail. The author of this paper had planned the interpretation, written the texts and had been responsible for its implementation. This excursion should serve as an example within an international workshop. The group had the task to test a provisional system of recommendations and standards for Heritage Interpretation which had been proposed by the Transinterpret project (c.f. Lehnes & Zányi 2004). In order to allow an unbiased application of the criteria, no background information on the objectives of the Belchen Discovery trail had been given in advance. Demonstrating the Discovery Trail to these experts invited some critical remarks… “You should not interpret that bluebells which people can identify only during the short time period while they blossom! Why did you not choose the heather?” “Those panels are old fashioned! However they do not disturb the splendid views.” “A common theme is missing!” “Too much text for an audience on leisure!” “Several obvious questions remain unanswered!” “No smell, touch or hands-on experience is provided: Just an outdated look-and-see trail!” …and it caused quite a hard time for the author, who had intended to create an example of good practice. On the other hand these negative experts’ judgments were contrasting the positive feedback, which had been collected so far by a small number of qualitative visitors’ interviews and by the local tourism agencies. This obvious discrepancy and being aware of the reasons for several of the criticised shortcomings revealed what may be called the “interpreter’s dilemma”: Although most quality criteria and recommendations in technical literature on Heritage Interpretation are well reasoned; In practice, however, there are sometimes good reasons not to meet these abstract criteria. Some criteria for good practice tend to contradict others. This paper exemplifies dealing with such a “dilemma” while planning the Belchen Discovery Trail; it presents some preliminary results of still ongoing visitor surveys on 1 this example; and it discusses some first conclusions for setting up quality standards for interpretive provision. 2 A site that draws attention: the Belchen Summit Trail in the Black Forest The creation of the Belchen trail has been part of a bigger project “Heritage Interpretation to Promote Sustainable Tourism” (Lehnes & Glawion, 2000). This pilot project within the Naturpark Südschwarzwald (Southern Black Forest Nature Park) comprises the whole process from the feasibility study and interpretive planning to implementation. A network of nine self-guided trails was developed in the districts of 8 villages and the rural town of Schönau. The area is situated in the Southern Black Forest on the eastern slope of the Belchen (1414 m) and in the valley of the Große Wiese River. Each trail has a central topic – ranging from Palaeozoic geology, the traces of the last glaciation in the ice-age to the history of the town up to recent times. Figure 1: A series of booklets in combination with numbered posts along the discovery trails encourage the visitors to notice special features and provide background explanations (Photo Lehnes 2001). In September 1999 the first interpretive trail on the Belchen summit was opened. In May 2001 all 9 Discovery Trails were officially launched. The project had a clear priority: Promotion of sustainable tourism by offering opportunities for visitors to experience the specials features and characteristics of their holiday area. Other objectives were to raise awareness for the rich natural and cultural 2 history and to support marketing of regional products. From the scientific point of view the pilot project aimed to transfer the thematic approach to Heritage Interpretation (e.g. Ham 1992) to Germany and adjust it to the region’s main target group, which are walking and hiking tourists. An additional aim of this applied project has been setting the stage for empirical field research, mainly by visitor surveys and visitor observation. Figure 2: A solid rock next to the “Trail back to the Palaeozoic” is cut and polished – like a gravestone. Now it provides in situ evidence about the volcanic history of an ancient mountain range. The booklet interprets the silent language of the minerals to the dramatic story of melting rock (Photo Lehnes 2002). In comparison to the other eight discovery trails the Belchen summit trail is situated in an extraordinary place. It leads to the top of the Belchen Mountain which is the third highest summit in the Black Forest. The spectacular views to the Alpine chain, the Upper Rhine Rift Valley and the Vosges Mountains attract more than 200 000 visitors per year – right into the centre of an important nature reserve. Because of the virtually and really exposed nature of the Belchen summit, interpretive planning has been influenced by strong driving forces from different directions (c.f. planning approaches as defined by Brochu 2003): 1. The top priority of supporting sustainable tourism calls for a market based planning approach (Brochu 2003, 15). Consequently the planning was preceded by a survey among tourists staying in two different destinations of the Black Forest (Lehnes 1997). It revealed that most tourists appreciate to learn more about the characteristics of the region and the special features of its natural and cultural sites. In this respect the market-based 3 planning approach demanded for a mainly resource-based planning (c.f. below) for the whole discovery trails project. Concerning the type of interpretive facilities the pre-study gave evidence that tourists to the Black Forest clearly prefer self-guided interpretive trails instead of guided tours, museums and exhibitions, slide shows or more detailed books. Belchen visitors have been interviewed on which topics would be most interesting to them. Besides the expected topics dealing with the special features of the Belchen and the distant views this small enquiry had an unexpected outcome: Several visitors were wondering about stumps of small trees which obviously had been sawed off in the heart of the nature reserve. 2. The nature reserve is managed by a governmental nature conservation agency that provided significant funding for this trail. Therefore – in contrast to the other trails – the additional objectives of this agency had to be taken into account (c.f. objective-based planning approach by Brochu 2003, 19). The conservation agency wished to give the visitors an idea of its work, i.e. biotope management and visitor flow management. Visitors should learn that despite the Belchen summit seems to be a wilderness in fact it is a vulnerable cultural landscape; and its biotopes need human interference in order to preserve their rich biodiversity – e.g. cutting down trees that threaten rare species. The necessity to convey this message was underpinned by the above mentioned interviews. 3. The extraordinary nature of the reserve and the spectacular views along the trail strongly suggest a resource-based planning (Brochu 2003, 18). This approach had been reinforced by the result of market research that the visitors are strongly interested in what makes the place special (c.f. no.1). The core of the nature reserve – one of the oldest in Germany – is the summit area being a small but scientifically important “island” of sub-alpine conditions. This entails a flora and fauna that is very rare not only in the Black Forest but almost all over Germany. However these on-site resources have to compete with the distant views. The view to the Rhine plain and the Vosges Mountains gives evidence of a highly significant geological structure: the Upper Rhine Rift Valley. The Black Forest and the Vosges are still slowly drifting apart. There are very rare places in the world that show so spectacularly how the earth’s crust has broken – provided the air is not too misty. 4 Figure 3: View from the Belchen summit trail to the distant Vosges Mountains beyond the wide Upper Rhine Rift Valley. The two mountain ranges are still moving in opposite directions. It is almost impossible not to mention this outstanding geological structure while interpreting the Belchen summit – at least for the author of this paper. (Photo Lehnes 1999) 4. Although there have been significant financial contributions by the EU’s Community Initiative LEADER II, the Naturpark Südschwarzwald and the Conservation Agency, the restricted budgets of the local communities were a limiting factor (c.f. budget-based planning approach Brochu 2003, 18). There was no possibility to allocate substantial permanent budgets for maintaining the interpretive facilities. Therefore costly interactive exhibits or audio devices were not affordable. The decision to use booklets as main media for the Discovery Trails project had to be questioned for the Belchen summit trail. The Nature Conservation Agency wished to reach those visitors who are not ready to pay for a booklet, too. Furthermore the booklets were supposed to be easily available for purchase for those tourists who stay for some days in the project area. The majority of visitors to the Belchen summit though are day trippers and tourists who stay at places beyond the project area. Considering the maintenance costs the planning team decided to use panels as additional medium on the Belchen – despite the old fashioned reputation of these traditional media, and despite the widespread opinion among German environmental 5 educators panels would not work and would be ignored by the great majority of visitors. However the planner was convinced that seriously applying the principles and recommendations for good practice in interpretation as published by Ham (1992), Serrel (1996), Trapp et al.