Layered landscapes, cultural and spiritual dimensions in a digital era.
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andscapes are physical entities experienced by people through lenses that are largely invoked by shared cultural norms and beliefs. “Believing is seeing” but how can we see what others believe and what truth the landscape hold for them? Thinking of the landscape as a construct of layers of meaning allows us to bring out the values of sacred and spiritual places and offers new ways for their protection. This article discusses the use of mapping technology, film, I-tracker and augmented reality as tools to bring the biocultural memory of landscapes into the lives of protected area managers and visitors.
Introduction. “Landscapes are culture before they are nature; constructs of the imagination projected onto wood water and rock”. Simon Schama (1995) goes further in supporting this statement, ‘‘...there is an elaborate frame through which our adult eyes survey the landscape. Before it can ever be a response for the senses, landscape is the work of the mind. Its scenery is built up as much from strata of memory as from layers of rock.’’ As aboriginal eyes survey the landscape they see more then meets the eye and quite possibly more then what Simon Schama ever imagined when he wrote his famous words. The stories, songs, paintings and dances of the Australian Aboriginals have been passed on from one generation to next, since time immemorial. The worlds longest continued art tradition is estimated to be over 20.000 year old (Chaloupka 1993). It depicts the sacred creation of the world itself, the actions of the ancestor beings that travelled the earth before the time of man. The overlays of paintings in rock shelters easily allow for a comparison with layers of maps in a modern geographic information system. Whilst the cultural memory, which holds the explanations of the paintings in the rock shelter, is protected by stringent taboos, protocols, rites of initiation and ceremony modern databases are typically passwords protected and encrypted. Interestingly the two systems have more in common than what one would expect at a first glance.
Bas Verschuuren, MSc. Coordinator Sacred Natural Sites Initiative, Core member EarthCollective network
[email protected]
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Mapping culture and spirituality At the hart of cultural landscapes lay its special places, rivers mountains, caves and waterfalls, imbued with a meaning of the sacred. These ancient sacred natural sites have gained interest from conservation practitioners as they are believed to contain high levels of biodiversity (Verschuuren et al. 2010).
These are areas of land and water that have special spiritual significant to people (Wild & McLeod 2008), an aspect which has and earmarked them for preservation and kept them safe from development. Quite often these sacred places are amongst the first that indigenous peoples would like to protect and conserve. Despite the risk of exposing sacred - and often secret places - to public scrutiny GPS is often used to map them in support of land claims. Court cases over Native Tile in Australia, Ancestral Domains in the Philippines and Indigenous Territories in the Brazilian Amazon are all supported by maps that feature sacred sites, quite often these are successful. Evidencing occupational history and a reciprocal relationship with the landscape is one of the most convincing arguments for recognising rights of ownership, use and access within a framework of national law. However compelling such arguments need to be well founded in order to win a legal battle in court. Today, cultural perceptions and shared history of landscapes can result in different and even contesting meanings of ecosystems and landscapes. Because these perceptions are rooted in cultural and spiritual significance of landscapes they are difficult to visualise and quantify. Subsequently they are often ignored in nature conservation approaches that have traditionally been dominated by scientific, economic and in cases also colonial rationale. Tracking landscape meaning Besides mapping sacred places technology is proving increasingly resourceful in supporting and informing culturally sensitive conservation approaches that take into account the multiple realities of sacred space. I-Tracker is a hand held multimediarecording tool originally developed by Louise Liebenberg’s Cyber tracker team in South Africa and offers a world of
Figure 1. Overlays of many generations of rock paintings describing the stories of the creation time at Injalak hill in Kunbarllanjnja community, North West Arnhem Land Australia.
opportunities. In northern Australia Indigenous land and sea rangers use the tool for surveying illegal fishing vessels, recreational activity and of late also to map and monitoring sacred sites. In the field the rangers and the custodians of sacred sites can walk the perimeter of the location and store this polygon on a map. Pictures, audio recordings and even videos can be taken using the same device. These are easily linked to the location data, which can also be password protected according to the appropriate cultural protocol. The maps are quickly assembled and linked to a growing body of cultural information stored in the database. They can also be overlaid with
important management information on maintenance regulations such as active burning regimes, feral animal control and tourism visitation in the area. This way better informed decisions can be made by the management of the Indigenous Protected Areas on what management activities are likely to be most effective. A historic record based on monitoring the impacts of site visitation using I-tracker could for example show the need for closures or new signage to regulate tourist flows. Moreover the evidence supporting management decisions can quite easily be slotted into reporting structures and funding applications for specific conservation targets of sacred sites and cultural landscapes.
In northern Australia the custodians of a sacred site hold the responsibility to not only look after the physical place but also to preserve the knowledge related to that place. This rich biocultural heritage is also kept by a second person who can be consulted or step in when a situation of need occurs. Given the threats of globalisation much of these cultural systems and knowledge are rapidly disappearing. The I-tracker in combination with database technology such as developed by Cultural Systems Solutions [http://www.culturalss.com. au/] helps document this place related information that is in some cases quickly disappearing and it can do so in a peoples own language. However there are also downsides to the technology,
Figure 2. Indigenous Aboriginal rangers are planning recreational visitation in an area containing sacred sites.
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Figure 3. The sacred land film project in action recording a cultural performance of an aboriginal ranger explaining the sacred place he is painting. North East Arnhem Land, Australia.
people do not always trust or adapt to it as it is initially so different from the their own cultural memory and traditions.
get your story out to the world? For several decades, The Sacred Land Film Project [www.sacredland.org] has been doing just that.
The power of film No matter how foreign modern technology is to some people, in order to survive as a people, humans have long proven resilient through processes of adaptation and change. Nonetheless in today’s world the challenges are daunting. How do you stop a hydro dam from flooding your ancestral burial sites? Can you persuade a mining company not to divert a river that is sacred to your people and gives life to your land? When developers have no interest in your story and the government won’t hear you how do you
What started as a journalism and film project grew into a much broader platform for the protection of sacred places around the world. After an initial film about the sacred places of North American Indians, “In the Light of Reverence” the project is now producing a series of documentaries on sacred places around the world entitled “Standing on Sacred Ground”. In the lead up to showing the world about these sacred dimensions of landscapes the project also developed educational materials, guidelines for corporate
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industry and protected area managers (Wild & McLeod 2008). Its latest tool to educate the public is augmented reality. Landscape meaning on your smart phone Augmented reality is a technology for mobile devices that superimposes images and audio over the user’s surroundings, is one of the hottest new developments in mobile media. The Sacred Land Film Project and Devils Tower National Monument came together to develop an app that can help save ancient indigenous sacred sites, and inspire reverence for the natural world. The locative GPS technology and augmented reality helps raise awareness of native peoples and their traditional
lands by revealing the hidden history of a place and its indigenous caretakers. Narrated by native elders and storytellers, this “app” brings story, multimedia, song and augmented reality in unique combination to transform the user’s experience and perspective of the land. It also raises awareness on the role of the visitor in protecting the land and respecting different layers of cultural meaning on the land. Imagine yourself visiting the place and listen to one of the elders recounting the creation stories. While you survey the landscape you will also receive advise on what you can do to make your visit respectful of the local cultural traditions such as places you might not be allowed to go to or film and photograph.
database, maps in a geographical information system or stories and art woven into a cultural memory. Together these knowledges and technologies can help educate, experience and protect much of the richness that has been contained in these layers of meaning that people have projected onto wood water and rock.
References Chaloupka, G., 1993. Journey in time: The world’s longest continuing art tradition. Reed Sydney. Schama 1995, Landscape and Memory. Harper Collins publishers London. Verschuuren, B., Wild, R., McNeely, J., Oviedo G. (eds.), 2010. Sacred Natural Sites, Conserving Culture and Nature. Earth Scan, London. Wild, R. and McLeod, C. 2008. Sacred Natural Sites. Guidelines for Protected Area Managers. Best Practice Protected Area Guidelines Series No.16. IUCN. Gland.
Conclusion Thinking of these different meanings that link people to place one can easily conceive of them as layers in a Figure 4. Devils Tower Mobile app projects a historic image of a valley filled with Tipi’s over the landscape visible in front of the visitor using the app. Source: with courtesy from the Sacred Land Film Project, 2011.
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