Interviews Archive

Marty Blatt, Boston National Historical Park

marty-blattMarty Blatt is chief of cultural resources and historian at Boston National Historical Park and is vice president of the National Council on Public History.

What is public history?
Public history is history that attempts to be accessible and is done outside the university. It is history that is done in high schools, elementary schools, museums, local historical societies, and National Park Service sites. It also includes documentaries or historical films.

What is your job at Boston National Historical Park and how do you work with park interpreters?
I am chief of cultural resources and historian. In that job, I interact very closely with the interpreters on a whole range of issues. We have a new Battle of Bunker Hill Museum, we have a new Charlestown Navy Yard visitor center, and we are in the process of developing a new visitor center at Faneuil Hall, which millions of people will go through, without exaggeration. In every one of those, I work closely with interpreters. There is a very close interface between me as the historian and the interpreters, and that is really critical for getting the best final result.

How are interpretive programs at historical sites influenced by contemporary political, economic, or social issues?
I can give a particular example. The National Park Service partnered with the Gulag Museum in Perm, Russia, and Amnesty International to develop an exhibit on the history of the Gulag. It opened at Ellis Island, a National Park Service site, and traveled to Boston and around the country. The exhibit dealt with the history of the Gulag, which is something that is not well known in the United States. The Holocaust is a phenomenon that has gotten more attention, and it deserves to get attention here in the U.S., but the Gulag is a very important part of human history, suffering, repression, and the struggle for freedom that is very little understood in the United States. In this exhibit, we talk about the International Coalition of Sites of Conscience, of which the Gulag Museum is a member. The National Park Service worked with this coalition—its interest is in historic site museums. This exhibit deals with the history of repression (and every culture has such a history), exploring the history, but also exploring the contemporary relevance of that history.

History is not static. The study of history is not static, which is a good thing. There is no one true history or historical interpretation. History is a series of interpretations, and interpretations change with different eras, with different values, and with different research and studies that come to light. For example, at the Battle of Bunker Hill Museum, we deal with African-American history in a way that I think is quite interesting. If we had done this exhibit in the 1950s, it would be absent. But there is such an interest in the National Park Service in what has been called untold stories, and in the last several decades in U.S. history scholarship, there has been a real interest in African-American history.

The Park Service commissioned a study called “Patriots of Color,” which looked at the role of African Americans and Native Americans in Lexington, Concord, and Bunker Hill. And with respect to black participation at Bunker Hill, the numbers were much larger, much more significant than had previously been established by scholars. We tell the story in the Bunker Hill Museum of someone named Jude Hall, whom I am sure no one had ever heard of. He was a slave in the Revolutionary period who escapes from his master, enlists in the Continental Army, serves with distinction throughout, and is rewarded with his freedom at the end of the war. He goes to live in New Hampshire, but three of his sons are kidnapped into slavery. So on one level there is just the baseline piece of information that visitors find interesting— that African Americans served in the Continental Army. But beyond that, here is this story of this guy who is a slave, escapes to freedom, fights, earns his freedom through service, and then slavery and inequality obviously are not ended by the Revolutionary War. We just present the narrative of his story and then let people draw their own conclusions.

How has the field of public history changed throughout your career?
It has gotten professionalized and it is treated more seriously within, for example, the Organization of American Historians (OAH), the preeminent group of folks involved in U.S. history—a group largely composed of academics. For some time, I’d say most of the membership looked down at public history. It wasn’t seen as serious. It was seen as something extraneous, and now public historians are much more in the mainstream of the organization. Pete Daniel, who works as a curator at the National Museum of American History at the Smithsonian, is the first public historian to be elected president of the OAH. I think there has been great progress.

Have you noticed a shift in how public history is perceived by the public itself?
The public really looks for and trusts history presented by museums and historic sites as much as any source—maybe more than any other source. The general public has embraced public history for some time. I think that “professional” historians had not but that is shifting, truly a positive development.

What are the important themes at Boston National Historical Park?
The key themes are the definition of freedom, of liberty in the Revolutionary period in U.S. history, and the founding of the nation. We feature the Freedom Trail, which is mainly historic sites related to the Revolutionary period in Boston. Our park also includes Charlestown Navy Yard, which addresses the defense of the nation in the early national period. The USS Constitution, the oldest commissioned warship in the nation, is berthed in the Charlestown Navy Yard, which is a National Park Service site.

We also have Boston African American National Historic Site, which is an independent park administered by Boston National Historical Park. And that site deals with the story of the free black community in antebellum Boston, which is a very interesting story—a story of runaway slaves, the underground railroad, abolitionists, and the creation of the 54th Mass. Regiment, the most notable black regiment in the Union Army in the Civil War. So we cover a lot of ground in Boston.

For more information on the National Council on Public History, visit www.ncph.org. Find Boston National Historical Park online at www.nps.gov/bost.

Mark Carr, AEP River Operations

mjc-formalMark Carr works on public relations, government affairs, and safety communications at AEP River Operations in Chesterfield, Missouri.

What is RiverWorks Discovery?
RiverWorks Discovery is our river education program. We provide the foundation for positive community action for healthy, multiuse waterways by educating children and their families about the commerce, culture, and conservation of the great rivers and their watersheds. Our website is www.RiverWorksDiscovery.org.

We’re part of AEP River Operations, the second-largest dry-bulk carrier on the inland rivers. We handle grain, metals, construction materials, and coal. We have about 2,700 barges and about 70 towboats. We have about 1,600 employees, most of whom work on our towboats. Our people ride 24/7/365, in four-, three-, or two-week trips.

What is the scope of your education program?
RiverWorks Discovery addresses commerce, culture, and conservation education. It is easy to find clean water programs, but it is difficult to find programs on the culture and history of the rivers. And it is very difficult to find out about the history of commerce—what the Native Americans, the early settlers, or the people of the steamboat era moved, or what is currently moving on our waterways. When we started the program about four years ago, we made a conscious effort to talk about commerce, culture, and conservation, all interwoven into RiverWorks Discovery.

What are your objectives in providing these educational opportunities?
Our objectives are to promote community action, and there are a couple of ways that happens. One is through recognition, the appreciation when you see those commercial boats going by, whether they are barge freight, passenger vessels, or something else, that those are integral parts of the community, both from the jobs standpoint and looking backward through time. If you are looking at a fishing vessel, recognize that the Native Americans fished along there, the settlers fished along there.

RiverWorks Discovery’s mission on the cultural side is to help folks understand why towns are along the waterways in the first place. Even cities that don’t have a real maritime focus—like Spokane, Fort Collins, or Columbus—were settled because there was a steady supply of clean water. Generally, Native Americans had a settlement there, then the settlers came in and established their own villages.

It’s important to us that when policymakers are dealing with river issues, the public understands the issues and supports river use. That means locks, dams, and maintenance along the big rivers that support navigation and clean water. Our industry is heavily regulated for clean water, but people mistakenly think that the boats are dirty and pollute. In reality, shipping cargo by boat creates fewer air emissions and fewer fuel spills than rail or truck.

In general, what responsibility do you think that businesses have to provide this sort of education that you are talking about?
Perhaps not responsibilities, but certainly opportunities. If businesses want to be sure that the public understands them, they should use opportunities to talk to the public. If the public doesn’t understand them and they haven’t taken those opportunities, then it is not the public’s fault.

That is the situation we were in a few years ago in our industry. We had public policy issues that we were trying to address. The public didn’t understand our river industry and the policymakers didn’t understand us, either. So we took the opportunity to go out and talk to the public and talk to policymakers through this RiverWorks Discovery mechanism, and we think it is paying dividends for us. We think that people can understand us on a better level than if we just walked in with “PR-speak.” This is hands-on, real-world stuff that kids and families enjoy. Policymakers see that.

What are the venues for providing this information to the public?
We have a tent exhibit that we take out to community festivals, regattas, and school events, where kids can see the maps and images from our history. An interpreter talks about the cargo from past times and now. The kids have a clean rivers pledge that they can make. The interpreter will work with them on points like, if you are mowing the lawn and changing the oil in your lawnmower, don’t pour the dredge out on the grass because oil makes its way into our streams and rivers.

RiverWorks Discovery commissioned storyteller Susan Fowler to develop a story about the rivers and the lives of the people who work out there now. She works with fiber braiding and interprets songs. Kids play the different parts of the tow and the members of the crew. We’re delighted that Susan helps us; she’s phenomenal.

Our team built two 3-D puzzles: a side-wheeler from the steam era and a modern towboat. Each has about 20 pieces. These puzzles are displayed with illustrated banners so the kids can see a historic riverfront with the side-wheeler and a contemporary riverfront with the modern towboat. As the kids work the puzzles, the interpreter guides them through the concepts on the surrounding banners.

We also built a lock and dam toy that is made of heavy plastic and has water storage tanks and pumps. It pumps water into the upstream side of the dam. There’s a working dam and lock chamber. This thing is a pretty good size. It’s roughly eight feet long, four feet high, and a couple of feet wide. It holds about 60 gallons of water. The toy boats are roughly the size of a football. The kids learn quickly, usually before than their parents do. The kids can get in there, get wet, learn something, and have a good time. They can lock through going upstream or downstream, depending on how they control the dam and the lock chamber.

It sounds like most of what you were describing is geared towards children.
We developed our program for kids ages 7–12 because they are old enough to make judgments, think independently, and engage in activities, but they are young enough that our printed materials go home to their parents and grandparents. That was an important part of our community action goal—that adults engage in this community issue. We use our opportunity to get an important story to families.

What has the reaction been from the public since you began offering RiverWorks Discovery four years ago?
It has been pretty positive. We have done pre- and post-surveys and we have gotten qualitative feedback from attendees. We have gotten a lot of encouragement and a lot of positive evaluations. We have dealt with about 150,000 kids and families and it has pointed us in two directions. One direction we are exploring is making a more substantial museum exhibit that would travel around the country. We’d like to show RiverWorks Discovery to millions of people. Second, we may add high school programs. That could help us in policy issues and with making impressions on future employees.

Allen Washatko: Principal, The Kubala Washatko Architects, Inc.

allen_washatkoAllen Washatko is principal and co-founder, along with Tom Kubala, of The Kubala Washatko Architects, Inc. (TKWA) of Cedarburg, Wisconsin. TKWA embraces a design philosophy of “Wholeness,” where the built environment supports and enhances both human activity and natural living systems. The idea of sustainability is a natural extension of wholeness-based thinking and is integrated into every studio project. Current TKWA projects are located throughout the United States and in Costa Rica. In 2007, the Aldo Leopold Legacy Center achieved LEED® platinum and became the highest rated new building measured under the United States Green Building Council rating system. It is the first building certified by LEED as carbon neutral in operation.

What is your role as an architect?
On the surface, we just make buildings and places. Many of them are highly sustainable, such as the Aldo Leopold Legacy Center in Baraboo, Wisconsin. We used to strive to interweave architecture with the human and biotic community, but that presupposes a separation between the three, requiring a joining together. We later realized that a building, to be truly continuous with its surroundings, needed to organically unfold from its biotic and social context. This requires a subtle and accurate understanding of the context. Our success depends on careful perception of the building user’s needs, vision, and culture. At the same time, we must make sense of the physical setting in which the users’ actions will take place. The physical/social setting for the building forms an undivided whole, which we must carefully read. In other words, we need to accurately assess the wholeness from which the building unfolds.

What is “wholeness”?
Wholeness is a difficult concept to fully grasp, and has been a matter of debate for many centuries. Understanding wholeness relates to the way one sees the world, to different modes of consciousness. It is widely acknowledged today that, through the growth of the science of matter, the Western mind has become more and more removed from contact with the true nature of reality. We agree with contemporary thinkers such as Henri Bortoft, who argue that “In contrast [to wholeness], an intellectual approach to scientific education begins by seeing the phenomenon as an instance of general principles.” David Bohm is another contemporary writer who argues that “science itself is demanding a new, non-fragmentary world view, in the sense that the present approach of analysis of the world into independently existent parts does not work very well in modern physics.” Bohm’s central view is that an understanding of the undivided wholeness of the universe would “provide a much more orderly way of considering the general nature of reality.” In the world of architecture, this line of reasoning is best reflected in the work of architect and writer Christopher Alexander, who concludes, “The beauty of a building, its life, and its capacity to support all life come from the fact that it is working as a whole. A view of the building as a whole means that we see it as part of an extended and undivided continuum.”

How does the idea of wholeness relate to interpretation?
We had been developing our studio philosophy and approach for many years before coming into contact with the National Association for Interpretation. At the recommendation of a friend who works as an exhibit designer, we attended our first National Workshop several years ago. We were immediately surprised and excited to discover parallels between our own work and the ideas that form the intellectual framework for much of interpretation. In particular, we found that Freeman Tilden best expressed an interpretive understanding of the concept of wholeness. Tilden’s Fifth Principle states, “Interpretation shall aim to present a whole rather than a part, and must address itself to the whole man rather than any phase.” Tilden observed that “interpretation is the revelation of a larger truth that lies behind any statement of fact.” He also stated that, “true interpretation deals not with parts, but with a historical—and I would say spiritual—whole.” Now if Tilden had stopped merely at this point we would have had much in common. But he goes further and gets even closer to the heart of the matter. He states, “Since most people think of beauty as something perceivable through the eyes alone, here is a challenge for the interpreter. He must take the visitor into that larger sphere of the same quality, which we may call order….” After reading Tilden, we thought, “This is great. Here is a group of professional people who really get it.” Wholeness, in our view, is not merely a summation of parts or a totality. Wholeness equals beauty, meaning, and order. It is the interpreter’s job to understand, and then communicate, the wholeness of a place. We consider it our job as architects to first understand and then to reinforce, and even attempt to help rebuild, the wholeness that exists.

How can architecture support interpretation?
In setting out to develop an interpretive facility, the typical approach begins with a “program,” a document that identifies a list of rooms and spaces that accommodate the center’s needs. These needs are stated in very specific terms, and normally include: size, orientation, adjacencies, intended uses, electrical and mechanical needs, special equipment, furniture, storage, and required built-in accoutrements. The building design then becomes an artful assemblage of the component parts identified in the program as rooms.

We have been wary of this typical design process for many years now. It acts as a highly selective filter, leaving critical information behind. This “normal” way of programming a building excludes the social, spiritual, and intellectual pursuits undertaken by staff and visitors, how it heals a weak environmental fabric, how it allows staff to feel fully engaged and stimulated, how it maintains its stability as a place over a long period of time, etc. It is no wonder that so many of today’s new buildings seem somehow lifeless, leading us to believe that the true component “parts” of a building are not just a set of rooms, but something much more meaningful, accurate, rich, and alive.

In response, we have worked very hard on a concept called “pattern writing.” The idea of a pattern is quite old, emerging from the scientific work and writings of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. Goethe was critical of the way in which the scientific community of his time (1749–1832) observed the natural world. He decried the method of plucking organisms from their context, pulling them apart and cataloging the apparent pieces, using a predetermined vocabulary of terms. He preferred a disciplined method of observation that allowed one to see the organism as it was, in its context, as it lived and changed. What emerged from this kind of observation was an understanding of the real “parts” of the organism: patterns of relationships that described the morphology of the organism as an undivided whole. Aldo Leopold would be proud!

Goethe’s central ambition (according to L.L. Whyte) “was nothing less than to see all nature as one, to discover an objective principle of continuity running through the whole, from the geological rocks to the processes of aesthetic creation. Moreover, this discovery of the unity of nature implies the simultaneous self-discovery of man, since man could thereby come to understand himself better.”

Christopher Alexander has developed the idea of patterns even further, particularly in the area of “aesthetic creation.” His book A Pattern Language has revolutionized our way of seeing, designing, and constructing the built environment.

What, specifically, are patterns?
Patterns are an accurate representation of the essential constituent parts of both the natural and built environments. A pattern describes the necessary relationship between a set of events and an arrangement of space conducive to those events. The two aspects, events and spatial organization, are considered facets of the same undivided whole. One of the curious things about patterns is that they can’t exist in isolation. Their definition is recursive: a pattern is composed of other patterns at the same or smaller scales. And those patterns, in turn, are made of yet smaller patterns and so on. This nested, cooperative, and interwoven structure accounts for the organic nature of the world as we know it. It is a rather accurate reflection of the way the universe organizes itself.

The goal of developing patterns in the architectural realm is to gain a deeper understanding of how a building and its environment can be configured to support both human activity and natural processes in a harmonious way. Writing patterns can help identify the deeper spiritual and emotional values inherent in a place.

One of the great advantages of patterns is that they do not rely on the specialized language of the architect. They communicate information in very clear and simple language that is easily understood by a broad variety of people. A by-product of this clarity is that it helps gain consensus among all stakeholders when specific actions are required. This approach also encourages much better feedback from stakeholders, which is especially important if the process is intended to be an inclusive one where quality of feedback is critical.

How does pattern writing relate to interpretation?
For the typical interpretive facility, the building itself is usually seen as backdrop to the more important work carried out by traditional forms of interpretation, including exhibits, signage, and performances. The building provides basic functional needs of enclosure, circulation, public services, and administration. And most facilities attempt to offer superficial design elements that relate to the broader interpretive message, i.e. rustic lodge features for a wilderness-based center. But in many cases interpretive meaning is not considered carefully enough as an integral part of building and site design. In her book Interpretive Planning, Lisa Brochu notes that “interpretation is often an afterthought, considered only after the site or facility is fully constructed.” We believe that a building and the spaces around it must truly become a more integral part of telling the interpretive story. And we have concluded that the pattern writing process offers the best opportunity for allowing this integration to occur in a meaningful and comprehensive way.

While we have typically employed this process for the design of new buildings, pattern writing can also be a useful diagnostic tool for any type of interpretive center, whether it is a site-based visitor center or a collections-based urban cultural center. Even for an organization that is not contemplating a major facility expansion/renovation, the process of pattern writing can identify weaknesses in the way a building and site support the mission of the organization and offer solutions for making the place more alive, more functional, and more inviting to both staff and visitors.

What were your goals for the Aldo Leopold Legacy Center?
In creating a new facility, the Leopold Foundation hoped to achieve two primary objectives. At a basic level, they wanted more space to meet operational needs now and in the future. At a more fundamental level, however, the foundation wanted to create a facility that was a true expression of its mission. While this is often the stated goal for an organization when building a new facility, the Aldo Leopold Foundation was unique in its commitment to this core ideal.

The foundation’s mission is to advance Aldo Leopold’s concept of a “Land Ethic” as originally defined by the famed naturalist in his influential 1949 book A Sand County Almanac. Leopold’s “Land Ethic” has had significant impact on the modern conservation movement with his reasoning that “a land ethic…reflects the existence of an ecological conscience, and this in turn reflects a conviction of individual responsibility for the health of the land.” Our task as the design team for the Leopold Legacy Center was to create a place where visitors could come into more intimate contact with the land, and to begin to intuitively understand for themselves what Leopold meant by a land ethic.

The goal in designing the new Leopold Center, located near the original “Leopold Shack” on the site where Aldo Leopold died fighting a brush fire, was to create, in the words of Foundation Director Buddy Huffaker, a “high-intensity, low-volume experience” for visitors. By this, he meant a facility that would impart a deeper, more lasting visitor experience than typical nature or interpretive centers that serve large numbers of casual visitors. The Leopold experience, at its best, should instill in visitors a deeper understanding of earth processes and offer the stirring of a profound intellectual and emotional awareness of man’s relationship to the land.

Sam Ham: Using Interpretation to Promote Conservation in the Galapagos

Sam Ham with a whale-watching guide in Mexico.

Sam Ham with a whale-watching guide in Mexico.

Since 1998, Sam Ham, author of Environmental Interpretation: A Practical Guide for People with Big Ideas and Small Budgets, has collaborated with Lindblad Expeditions in strengthening protection of the Galapagos Islands’ natural heritage.

What is Lindblad Expeditions?
Lindblad Expeditions is a long-established, cruise-based travel company. Their biggest vessel holds 80 passengers, and most of them are in the 60- to 65-passenger range. They cruise pretty much all over the world, but their trademark is to go to extraordinary natural and cultural environments.

Lars Lindblad is considered the father, the pioneer, the first adventure cruise operator. He was the first ever to go to Antarctica with tourists, and he believed that adventures could change people, that they were transformative.

How is Lindblad Expeditions involved in protecting the resources of the Galapagos?
Lars is now long passed away, but his son Sven is carrying on this legacy of saving the world. His corporate philosophy is that he makes his livelihood off the special places on Earth, and that if he can deliver an experience that bonds his passengers with those places, they will come to care about them. Sven operates his company and he makes every decision in a way that is consistent with that philosophy. It was this that led him to get in touch with me in 1998.

He had been one of the first actually to operate in the Galapagos archipelago and he was blown away by the place. He developed a fund that he called the Galapagos Conservation Fund, and he set it up to be administered by the Charles Darwin Foundation, the Charles Darwin Research Station, and the Galapagos National Park Service, which is a part of the Ecuadorian National Park Service. He believed that the fund could grow to a size that it could help to pay for protection and conservation projects through donations from his guests.

Among the top priorities is eradication of introduced species, because those islands, like all island ecosystems, are threatened by outsiders that quickly adapt and out-compete the natives who aren’t used to that type of competition. The next thing you know, native and endemic species are extinct. In the Galapagos, 70 percent of the plant and animal species are endemic.

Sven decided that he wanted to do something about that, and he believed that his passengers would want to participate, so he set up this fund to do it. They were raising about $1,800 a week by telling guests on the boats about the fund and asking if they would like to donate to it.

How did your investigations and planning improve Lindblad Expedition’s ability to get guests to better support conservation of Galapagos resources?
My job was to do the research, to identify the messages that they needed to communicate as part of their interpretive program. It’s not fundraising, this is philanthropy. They are different critters. The idea of the interpretive program is to make people care about the place. You do that with powerful thematic interpretation, so the idea was to identify what messages or themes needed to be worked into the interpretive program over the course of a seven-day tour.

I conducted interviews to identify the beliefs that guests had about making a donation to a fund like that. I was interviewing people while snorkeling next to them, swimming between sea lions, and stepping over blue-footed boobies on trails.

After analyzing the data and developing strategic messages, we rolled out a prototype campaign with the slogan, “All Things Lead to the Invitation.” The invitation was nothing more than a photocopied brochure with some text and images. It was placed in the privacy of passenger cabins, so there was no fundraising, no hounding. Guests could decide whether to make a donation to the Galapagos Conservation Fund when they paid their bill—the bar bill, gift shop bill, leaving a gratuity, then the Galapagos Conservation Fund was an option. There was a line that said, “You have already done enough just by being here and coming to love this place, because in the end it will be your love that will matter the most. However, if you want to participate further….”

This is a very special kind of communication because it was aimed at philanthropists. It was aimed at people who were falling in love. This was communication about bonding people to a place and then giving them the opportunity to participate in protecting something they care about. If you can achieve that, they would thank you later for the opportunity. That is the way philanthropy works, as opposed to fundraising.

Were there any surprises in what you found when you did your interviews?
This came up over and over again: One of the key messages is that all eyes are on Galapagos. That is to say, the conservation community worldwide is watching the Galapagos example. There is no place in the world that gets more attention than the Galapagos, and if conservation can’t work there, where can it work?

What was the result of the process?
After I presented the prototype campaign, Sven asked one no-nonsense question that put all of this in its place: “Okay Sam, if we do all of this that you are suggesting, how much will the donations increase?” The guy wanted a figure, and I am thinking, how would I know? Now everybody is looking at me and I bet some of them are thinking, “Glad that is not me, sucker.” I started to mushmouth and kind of had my hand over my mouth, and the next thing I know, “30 percent” came out of my mouth.

When I said that, there was no reaction for a second, and then Sven looks at me and he says, “Okay, 30 percent. That sounds okay, 30 percent.” I took a big sigh of relief.  Now 30 percent became a magic number.

Of course, Lindblad carefully monitors donations to the fund, and by the end of the cruising season in December, the donations had increased not by 30 percent, but by 277 percent. It is a great success story.

What kind of impacts has Lindblad been able to achieve with the funds?
Remember, this is all about protecting a place, particularly an island ecosystem threatened mainly by introduced species. Lindblad adopted an island called Santiago Island, one of the islands in the archipelago where virtually all of the companies stop. On Santiago Island, there were thousands of feral goats and pigs. The goats and pigs were taking out the endemic Galapagos tortoise, and this is the tortoise that the islands were actually named after. They browsed on a particular kind of plant, and the goats were eating the plant. The turtles were starving to death.

So, to save the tortoises and to save the turtles, you have to get rid of the pigs and goats. That costs a lot of money. Well, the punctuation mark to the story is that the last goat and pig that were seen was over three years ago.

The total amount raised so far since the inception of the fund is right at $4 million. The total raised in 2007 was over half a million in one year. The total raised as of July 15 this year is $347,000.  What is happening is the donations are bigger and, of course, that is a huge credit to the Lindblad staff for finding their stride with the face-to-face communication aspects of the campaign.

Dan Shilling: Author, “Civic Tourism: The Poetry and Politics of Place”

2008_nai_nw_keynote_shillingDan Shilling worked at the Arizona Humanities Council from 1984 until 2003, the last 14 years as director. He guided Arizona’s early research on heritage tourism, editing three publications and earning several awards, including the Arizona Office of Tourism “Person of the Year Award” and the Museum Association of Arizona “Distinguished Service Award.” Dan recently directed a three-year project on place-based tourism, resulting in the book Civic Tourism. He teaches a seminar at Arizona State University (ASU) on sustainability, and he recently received an ASU fellowship to research the connections between Aldo Leopold’s Land Ethic and sustainability.

How do you define the term “civic tourism”?
We present it as a tool for communities that are already doing place-based tourism, but maybe it’s not working as well as they had hoped. Civic tourism is a way for communities to figure out how to do place-based tourism better. It involves rethinking what tourism is for, reframing the purpose of tourism.

I had been researching and practicing cultural heritage tourism for a long time, and after about 10 years, I asked, “Why isn’t it working?” The questions I kept coming back to were: “If place is so important to tourism, why are our places being destroyed?” (Drive around the West and you’ll see what I’m talking about.); and “If museums, parks, cultural sites and heritage institutions are so important to tourism, why is their funding always in jeopardy? (In many places it’s been decreasing for the last 10 to 20 years.)

What do you mean when you say that the mission of civic tourism is to “reframe” tourism’s purpose—from an end to a means?
If you look at the way most communities talk about tourism, their annual report says, “This is how many people came, and this is how much they spent, and this is the bed taxes that were generated, etc.” That’s what we mean by seeing tourism as an end.

What we say is, don’t look at the industry as an end in itself, but look at tourism as a tool that can help people preserve and enhance the things they love, admire, and respect about their place. That’s a difficult frame flip for some in the traditional hospitality industry. If you go to most tourism conferences and listen to the people thumping their chests about what a great program they have, what they’re generally saying is, “This is how we got more people to come to Yuma, Arizona.” They are not saying, “This is how we used the industry to help the people of Yuma preserve their Native American culture.” That’s a different way of looking at tourism.

How does a community go about “investing in place”?
First we need to know what place is, and that’s what interpretation is about, telling the story of a place. We should invest in the very thing we are marketing, both conceptually and financially. In most states, funding has increased significantly in the last decade for offices of tourism, convention and visitors bureaus (CVBs), and chambers of commerce, while museums, state and national parks, heritage centers, and cultural institutions—their funding has been stagnant or actually declined.

What the heck is place and who gets to define it? That’s where the word “civic” comes in. The people most affected by the tourism industry are those who live in the community, and yet most tourism conversations are very narrow. It’s typically your chamber of commerce, and we know who sits on those boards—car dealers, hoteliers, realtors, developers, the growth industry. They’re not in the place-making business.

The question I raise naively when I talk to communities is, “If your tourism product is historic Main Street, why isn’t your office of tourism with the historical society?” Chambers of commerce are about growth, and that’s okay, but sometimes growth can get in the way of quality tourism. Tourists don’t generally travel to go to sprawl and Wal-Mart.

My friend Mark McDermott, who used to be the tourism director here in Arizona, is fond of saying, “More is not better; better is better.” If we build healthy places for our residents, tourists will come. But if we focus on designing a community to attract tourists, we may do that, but we may also alienate locals, creating an ugly us-and-them dynamic.

How does a place prevent itself from being defined by tourism instead of its tourism being defined by the place?
When we get everybody in the room, that is the question we ask: Does place serve tourism or does tourism serve place? If you look at the way many communities’ programs are designed, it is not done by locals. It’s outside corporate forces and consultants saying, “This is how to get more people to come to Tombstone.”

And look at the results: Tombstone, which has about 1,200 residents, attracts 500,000 visitors a year. Every day there are more tourists in town than residents. But they stay about two hours and spend $10. That’s no way to build a tourism economy. The National Park Service threatened to withdraw the town’s National Register status because they had so compromised their history. I mean the town had just become schlock—I call it rubber tomahawk tourism. Happily, things are changing in Tombstone.

One way to effect change is to create something like a place committee. Get this conversation out of your CVB. Get it out of your chamber of commerce and create something that’s driven by people, by citizens who care, not distant corporations.

What is the “creative economy” and what does tourism have to do with it?
Economists like Richard Florida, Herman Daly, and Paul Hawken say if you invest in the thing that makes your place special—its history, culture, environment—ultimately it is good for the economy. I argue that the tourism industry is basically out to lunch on this—still trapped in industrial-age economics. But what sector is better positioned to take advantage of history, culture, and sense of place than tourism? What industry benefits more from uniqueness, distinctiveness, character, and culture? Who gains more from a clean, healthy environment? My challenge to the tourism industry is to align yourselves not so much with the asphalt paving companies and the folks who just want to grow your town. You should be standing shoulder to shoulder with The Nature Conservancy and the museums and the sense-of-place crowd because that ultimately is going to be better for the industry and your community.

I was just in a little town called Baraboo, Wisconsin, where the Aldo Leopold Foundation is. I applaud Baraboo, there are wonderful projects going on there, but you can’t become complacent. Scott Sanders says the making of place is never done, you have to remain vigilant. One mission of civic tourism is to create an ethic in the community so that when good chamber of commerce directors like the one in Baraboo leave, or when office of tourism directors change, there is a community ethic that remains, one that says, “This is what we care about.”

Incidentally, the tourism business can learn a lot from Aldo Leopold because he was a leading voice for sustainability and community building. He wrote about our relationship to the environment and our responsibility to it, and that’s a big part of civic tourism—being responsible for place.

What is the role of heritage interpretation in civic tourism?
I’m afraid most people in the tourism business don’t know how hard place-making is. Anyone who’s worked in a museum knows that. Interpretation is not just marketing and it’s not only a financial investment—it’s conceptual, too. I go into too many museums and heritage centers where I leave and I still don’t know what their story is. It’s the “grandma’s attic” thing, where there are some cowboy boots here, a sewing machine there that says, “Circa 1872,” and I am trying to figure out what their story is, what they are proud of. We should focus on telling the story of the community so that it engages people and keeps them there. With civic tourism we talk a lot about trying to recreate the experience of place. It’s easy to get that great “Ah hah!” standing on the rim of the Grand Canyon. But how do you create that experience on Main Street in Flagstaff? Leopold said to be a good forester, you have to know more than soil and trees. You have to know the history and culture of the place, and you have to be committed to that story. It’s an attachment born of love and respect, something that should inspire interpretation.

Some towns, unfortunately, do it backwards. They bring in a consultant and pay him a ridiculous sum to come up with a brand. My sense is that a brand should grow organically. If there is a brand, it is something that emerges naturally from what you already are, not somebody holding a focus group and dumping a label on your town.

Is there economic research that compares heritage tourism with other kinds of tourism?
Oh, sure. Most states do their own research on ecotourism, cultural tourism, and heritage tourism. And while we may argue over categories and parse definitions, there is enough research out there that shows these travelers stay longer and spend more. When we did our first studies about 10 years ago, we learned that about 40 percent of people who visit Arizona come specifically to experience our history, culture, and environment. What our studies showed was that those visitors stay on average three and a half times longer than the people who come to play golf and hang out at a Scottsdale resort, and they spend considerably more money.

For those reasons alone, I doubt there is an office of tourism today that doesn’t have a cultural heritage tourism program—or at least the means to track the staying and spending habits of these visitors.

What are some places that you think are positive examples of civic tourism?
The shame is there are not a lot of them. Many are in other countries, such as Ireland or Australia. One area where we stumble is rallying communities politically. It’s one thing to sit around and talk about our history and culture, but when I say, “You need to be at the legislature. You need to be lobbying,” there is often a reluctance to do that. To which I say, “You know, there are people at the legislature every day who are lobbying for stuff that is not friendly to your mission.”

Richard Sims is the director of the historical society in Montana and he is collaborating with the office of tourism there, trying to get the conversation going in small towns, in particular. If you are in Montana, there is no doubt your tourism is place-based. Ohio and Texas have pilot programs under way as well. Iowa has a wonderful initiative called “Iowa Great Places.” The program is the perfect example of state agencies coming together to invest in the culture of communities for economic development, mostly built around tourism.

The one I consider the granddaddy of them all is what Bruce Fraser does in Connecticut. If you manage a heritage site there, you can apply to the Connecticut Humanities Council for a large grant to support a cultural tourism program—to help with capacity building, planning, product development.

Unfortunately, if you operate a museum in Colorado or Arizona, whose economies are tourism-dependent and whose tourism is largely place-based, there is often nowhere to turn. If you are in Denver, you might ask a corporation or foundation, but if you are out in Trinidad, Colorado, where do you get $100,000 for a cultural tourism program? And the funding that does exist for culture and preservation generally has no tourism connection. Why isn’t there a product development program that is the equivalent of most states’ tourism marketing agency?

What do you envision for the future of civic tourism?
The civic part is essential. When I got into tourism, the first thing I noticed was there wasn’t much public conversation about tourism, even though it’s a giant economic engine. There was a pretty narrow slice of people who were determining policy for a whole town, and they were not necessarily the people who had sense of place as their most important criteria. I also felt many tourism officials didn’t appreciate how difficult place-making is.

But things are changing; I am hopeful. First, there are exciting, creative programs being developed around the country—efforts that focus on public engagement and resource development. Also, when I visit universities today the hospitality students are reading Richard Florida and other creative economic texts. They realize that tourism is not just refrigerator magnets and T-shirt shops. They’re studying the cultural, political, and environmental consequences of tourism. As the next generation of tourism professionals, they appreciate the value of “place,” and many now understand that the industry is an important player in the whole social network.

Dan Shilling will be a keynote speaker at the 2008 NAI National Workshop in Portland, Oregon, this November. Visit www.interpnet.com/workshop for details.

Philippe Cousteau, Jr., Co-founder and CEO, EarthEcho International

Photo courtesy Animal Planet

Photo courtesy Animal Planet

The grandson of legendary oceanographer Jacques-Yves Cousteau and son of Philippe Cousteau, Sr., Philippe Cousteau, Jr. co-founded EarthEcho International (www.EarthEcho.org) with his sister Alexandra in 2000 to educate about and promote sustainability of the ocean environment. He has been involved in a number of television projects, including an ongoing role as the chief ocean correspondent for Animal Planet.

Your family background obviously has a lot to do with your current work. Was there ever any doubt that you and your sister would end up working to promote awareness about the importance of the oceans?
We always felt it was a tremendous opportunity to do good, to travel, and communicate the wonder and the joy of life. My sister and I were fortunate enough to grow up experiencing that, and now we get to share that with the world and encourage the world to embrace its full potential, to create a sustainable future. I mean, what little boy doesn’t want to be a fireman or something like that? But as I got older I was naturally inclined to be involved in exploration and conservation. I have the best job in the world in that I’m able to do so many different things through that ethic. There’s nothing better.

What inspires people to care about environmental and conservation issues associated with stewardship of the oceans?
People relate to people—and story. Story is I think the greatest language of learning that exists. You can’t just hammer people with statistics and information. People don’t relate to information and they don’t relate to animals unless they’re anthropomorphized. They relate to people.

It’s very important to be where people are—to go where they learn. You can’t expect people to come to you, especially in this brand-driven world where we get over a thousand brand hits a day. We need to be where people are in multiple ways. That’s what EarthEcho International does, and looking back, that’s what my father and grandfather did so well. My grandfather said, “We need to be doing TV, we need to be doing education programs, we need to be on radio, we need to be doing books, we need to be in concerts with John Denver and Crosby, Stills, and Nash. We need to be in places where people already are—with compelling stories.”

If you look at a lot of the films that my father and grandfather did, it wasn’t just about the animals. It was as much about the team and that sense of adventure, relating to those people and their experiences. That’s what people connected to, and that’s what we’re inspired by.

What is EarthEcho International?
We are a non-profit, non-formal, free-choice learning organization with a strong emphasis on new media and great faith in the power of great storytelling to bring about great change. Our mission is to use media and experiences to empower people to use the resources that can restore and protect Earth’s ocean and freshwater systems.

One of EarthEcho International’s values is, “We believe that story is a language of learning and that well-told and well-crafted stories can inspire individuals to make positive choices in their daily lives.” EarthEcho International’s website invites users to tell their own stories. How have these stories from people around the world affected what you do?
There are tremendous challenges that we face. It’s easy to get down and depressed when you’re seeing such waste and death and destruction and greed. I’ve found myself reading these stories people post on the website about what they’re doing and how they’ve been inspired by our work or someone else’s. On a personal level, that gives me fuel and gives me hope.

At EarthEcho International, we read those stories and we learn from them in terms of what people connect to. Those stories inform our work and how we frame some of the outreach and education that we’re creating through developing new media tools. We pay attention and see what resonates with people—what do they remember and what do they talk about? What inspires them and how do we learn from that?

philippe-cousteau-shark1What types of media have you found to be most successful to reach large audiences?
There’s so much stuff out there, so much competition. In terms of reaching large audiences, television is still a great way to do that, just like it was 20 or 30 years ago, which is why I got involved in Discovery and Animal Planet. But you can’t just do a public service announcement, you can’t just do a television show.

Increasingly, the Internet is an amazing way to reach masses of people. The Internet is the democratization of information. It provides a great opportunity to create hope for the future, and the access to information gives us great hope. It’s a tool that wasn’t available to my father and grandfather. The extension of the Internet is mobile communication devices like cell phones. They are not just output devices, but input devices as well. That gives people the opportunity to report, to engage in a dynamic dialogue with each other and with us, not just a one-way stream of information. It’s a very exciting time. I think we’re just starting to realize the significance of mobile devices.

We have to be in multiple places. People learn in different ways, and you have to be consistent, and you have to be ubiquitous (which we’re not, but we’re building towards), and you have to be inspiring.

What were your goals for the “Ocean’s Deadliest” film on Animal Planet?
“Ocean’s Deadliest” was a one-hour special. We might have done more together, but Steve [Irwin, aka “The Crocodile Hunter”] died tragically right in the middle of the film. Steve was genuine, warm, humble, and a hundred percent committed.

The goals of that film were pretty radical. To Animal Planet and Discovery’s credit, I said, “You know, I’m not interested in just a show that’s talking about deadly animals in the ocean.” We said the message needs to be that these animals may have a lot of poison or be venomous, but they all play a very important role, a balancing role in their environment. At the end of the film, the conclusion is that these animals are important to the balance of the ecosystem; it is actually humans that are the deadliest creatures in the ocean. And that was a strong, radical conservation message.

Crocodiles and sharks are a great way to draw people in, but the message is that sharks aren’t killers. There was one shark fatality last year, a couple this year, yet we kill 100 million sharks a year. More people are bitten by other people in New York City in a year than by sharks worldwide. Humans are the deadliest creatures in the ocean—and the most unsustainable creatures in the ocean. At the end of the film, I said there’s a lot of daunting things that we face, but all of us have the power to make a positive difference. We all make a difference by the choices that we make and the things that we buy. We all have the power to be part of the solution—every single person on the planet, no matter where you live, no matter what you do.

When I was approached to be the environmentalist host of the series “Oceans,” that was a message that I made very clear I would be bringing across. The overall message of the series is that the oceans are changing and humans are a great big part of that change, and most of that change is not for the better.

The EarthEcho International website repeats the theme, “Everything you do makes a difference.” How do you make the issue of the ocean environment relevant to someone who does not live near an ocean?
I do a lot of public speaking with schools, conventions, companies, you name it. When I talk about the oceans, I really talk about how they are the life support system of this planet, and that oceans are the primary regulator of our climate and our weather, and that no matter where you live, you are being impacted by these global systems. All the water in the world ends up in the oceans, and all the rivers and streams flow eventually to the ocean.

Even immigration can be linked to environmental degradation of the oceans. We know that there are people in Latin America and certainly Africa, West Africa, and North Africa, that are driven to destitution because of over-fishing by developed countries. These people have nothing and they turn to illegal immigration or refugeeism, trying to get into the United States, trying to get into Europe. We know that there are people in Latin America that are driven to that because the resources that they’ve been fishing for generations are gone. So, if you’re in Denver, you’re dealing with the illegal immigrant issue. There are myriad ways that the oceans reach everybody, and that’s what we try to talk about.

What are your primary concerns regarding the ocean environment?
The biggest areas for concern are the destruction and the human-caused decline of fisheries around the world and, of course, climate change, which is causing myriad problems: the bleaching and death of coral reefs, ocean acidification, and melting ice caps, to name a few at the top.

One of the things that concerns me the most is shark finning. As we’re decimating shark populations for a Chinese delicacy known as shark fin soup, we are destroying the predators that keep ocean ecosystems healthy. Much like wolves in Yellowstone, when they took wolves out, they found that the deer populations were exploding because the wolves weren’t picking off the diseased and the old. Then the deer populations collapsed and that had a massive impact on the vegetation that the deer traditionally ate, which in turn impacted all the other flora and fauna on down the food chain, and the whole system changed. The same thing happens when you remove sharks from an environment. They are the apex predators, and when you take those out, everything underneath begins to change and unravel.

Are there reasons for optimism?
There are indeed. You know that we are moving forward when a film like “An Inconvenient Truth” wins two Oscars. Society is changing. Society is waking up. We’ve seen peaks and troughs in the environmental movement over the past, but more than ever before I think people are engaging. We are seeing people more concerned about what they do. We are seeing governments start to wake up and be concerned about where they are getting their energy and their water. We’re seeing shifts in behavior. There is reason for hope and for optimism always, because in the absence of hope, there is nothing. And what good is living in a world with nothing?