Barbara: Thank you Brian.
Those were good examples for us to see, and I do want to say that I think that Wyoming
is doing such a good job at both collaboration with Federal Agencies and with tribes, and
also the spirit of diplomacy that they take into many of these very challenging projects.
The Drift is an amazing nomination, an amazing resource and they public involvement in that
is not to be underestimated as an important factor in the success of that nomination,
so thanks for sharing that with us.
Thanks for your last points too Mary.
I hear what you're saying about the consultants and I'm sure that many of our colleagues out
there would agree that this is something we need to do more of.
When we get to figuring out where we're going with everything we're hearing, I think that
will certainly be on our to-do list.
Does anybody have anything they'd like to ask Mary and Brian.
We are running over, but I think Drift in and of itself could be a great discussion.
You've also brought up some other good sites too Mary.
Anybody have anything to say, or are you too weary?
Nancy Brown: Nancy Brown here.
I just wanted to say that having recently reviewed the draft of the Secretary of the
Interior's standards, I really believe that adding cultural landscape architects or historical
landscape architects to the Secretary's standards is going to help get the attention of those
consultants who haven't at all been focused on that because we're going to be able to
point to that and say we want somebody with these criteria.
Overall, I just want to say that today has been terrific.
You all are absolutely inspirational in the work that you're doing, and I've come away
with lots of good ideas.
Betsy Eiglehorn: This is Betsy Eiglehorn.
I'd like to reinforce what Nancy Brown said about historical landscape architects, and
that landscape historians should be in there.
There's precedent for the parody between historical architects and architectural historians in
the standards.
I do all of the work in the northeast region through contracting, and one of the requirements
is experience with preparing documentation for cultural landscapes.
I don't go so far as to say historical landscape architect or landscape historian per se because
I think it would limit our pool when we need a team of expertise here, but I do ask for
demonstrated experience.
Mary, I don't know if you have the leeway to write that into your contracts or advise
people to write that into their contracts as you undertake that work.
Barbara: Mary, do you want to respond?
Mary: Well, we do not do many of those contracts, but we don't have a lot expertise locally
or regionally in this topic.
I think having our consultant community be more educated is the first step.
It's more likely, if they're more educated, it'll be more likely it will happen than if
we require a specific expertise to be hired for a project.
BLM manages most of the permits, almost all of the permits in Wyoming.
They could add it to their requirements or I think adding it to SOI standards is the
first start, but having them be more aware about landscape issues really makes more change
faster.
Barbara: I think that's a good point.
Nancy and Betsy, I think you raise a very good point, and there are certain parts of
the country that might be a bit challenged by that.
I think it also could go the way of some contracts where you've got a lead historian who subcontracts
with, let's say, an archaeologist.
Maybe there would be some opportunities for that kind of collaboration too, so we do get
that imprint.
Doug Harris: This is Doug Harris, [inaudible 00:05:02] tribe again.
I really applaud you, Mary, for the work you all have done with Medicine Wheel.
It has inspired many people to take a second look when tribes say, this place is ceremonial
and significant to us.
The work that you all did with the Forest Service in developing a protection plan there
is to be applauded and I think that pulling together the tribes of a region, even if you've
got 28 of them, to hear their voices about why a place is significant and then following
through on that is, it almost ... Well, we thank you for your work and here in Rhode
Island, we've been doing work with the Rhode Island Historic Commission.
If a Battlefield Mapping Grant needs to be done to identify ceremonial landscapes of
historic and cultural significance to the regions tribes, both post-European contact
and pre-European contact.
We thank you for the inspiration that you all provided there at Medicine Wheel.
Mary: Thank you.
Deanna: This is Deanna, and I would really like to just underline everything that Doug
just said because I think we're actually kind of lucky here along the Eastern Coast in that
we have the National Park Service Northeast region in particular that seems to be very
aware of the concepts of cultural landscapes and how they need to be addressed.
I'm just in awe of how well you're managing in Wyoming, and that work that you've done
is just very inspiring.
Barbara: Deanna, thanks for echoing all this praise we're heaping on Wyoming.
Well deserved, but I wonder Deanna, would you please tell everyone about your affiliation
and maybe just a few words about the indigenous cultural landscape team.
Deanna: Well, yes.
I knew you'd want me to make a presentation Barbara, and I don't really want to go into
it very much right now because we've really gone over the call.
I would be happy to talk about it at another presentation session, maybe when we talk about
tribal matters.
Barbara: Yeah, yeah.
No, I didn't want the presentation, but just tell them the affiliation.
I think a lot of them don't know this exists, and ...
Deanna: Probably a lot of people don't know it exists.
You're absolutely right.
The indigenous cultural landscape is a concept that crafted out of an attempt to talk to
environmentalists that were working with land conservation issues in the Chesapeake Bay
area.
It was adopted into a comprehensive management plan by the Chesapeake Bay office of the National
Park Service.
We've now got a national team of federal agency and state agency and tribal members, other
people working on the idea.
Primary a conservation and heritage education and heritage tourism concept.
Not so much as something that was meant to be a kind of legal construct or worked into
register, but it does fit into the mind-expanding work that Barbara and the rest of the team
working on the National Register Landscape Initiative are doing.
We're stretching the boundaries in more than one way, getting people to think in terms
of indigenous perspective in the East as well as the West.
Barbara: All right.
Thank you Deanna.
We're going to consider that a teaser for your presentation in February.
Deanna: Okay.
Barbara: Thank you everybody for attending.
This repeat was well worth it.
Thanks to you all who gave your presentations for the first time or the second time, and
thanks for the good questions that came out of it.
We'll be putting up some links to information on our website.
I'll be in touch with you all about how that's evolving and how you can access it.
Thanks very much.
Mary: Thanks Barbara.
Barbara: You're welcome.