Method: Incorporating Cultural Landscape Analysis into the General Management Plan

Identifying and Analyzing Cultural Landscape Features

Although the topographic aspects of the landscape were the basis of military tactics employed by both sides in the battle, the National Park Service has traditionally focused on human-made features in its preservation efforts. As a result, significant landscape features—such as critical viewpoints or the pattern of open fields and woodlands that determined where armies moved—had become lost or obscured over time. These topographic features had been treated as natural rather than cultural resources, and their significance had not been identified or understood. This became an important issue when the National Park Service began the process of preparing a new general management plan (GMP) to replace the 1982 version. In preparing this revised plan, which was approved in 1999, park historians used park archival materials, library records, period photographs and sketches, and maps to develop a history of the park and a set of historical base maps to document the landscape during different management eras. Map features included woodlots, thickets, orchards, open fields, fences, roads and lanes, railways, waterways, and the town of Gettysburg. These maps were digitized and then compared to 1993 aerial maps representing current conditions. In this way, it was possible to see the nature and extent of changes that have taken place on the battlefield and surrounding area over the past 135 years. In 1996, the park completed a cultural landscape inventory that quantified current conditions.

Agricultural Use of Parkland

Another important issue at the park has been agriculture. Since the National Park Service took over management in the 1930s, the emphasis has been on modern agricultural methods, at times compromising the integrity of natural and cultural features of the battlefield landscape for ease of farming and economic return. Historic lanes and fence lines, wetlands, orchards, and field boundaries were modified or eliminated to increase field size and allow access by large, modern, mechanized farm equipment. As proposed in the final 1999 GMP, the park will return to the historic agricultural field pattern that would have been present in 1863. In most cases, this will involve replacing fences between fields, but gaps in the fence may be left to allow for the passage of large, modern farm equipment.

Analysis of Cultural Landscape Features Aids in Decisionmaking

The research, analysis, and synthesis process undertaken by park staff as part of the GMP has made decision-making regarding the landscape, and the integration of natural and cultural resources, much easier. In certain areas of the park where trees have encroached on the battlefield, the decision has been made to remove the trees and convert the land to an upland meadow. This provides habitat for several bird species of special concern in the state of Pennsylvania, and park natural resource staff are working with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to improve these areas. In order to achieve complete historical accuracy, the cultural resource staff might have insisted on planting a crop grown in 1863 on this land, but were willing to compromise in favor of the birds. The cultural landscape analysis process had already determined that the important landscape features, in relation to the park's mission and goals, were the pattern of the agricultural fields, the size of individual fields, and fences and lanes, rather than the type of crop grown. Different types of grasses could be planted in place of field crops as long as the significant landscape features were maintained.

The GMP analysis process has helped the park meet the challenging terms of an agreement with the Chesapeake Bay Program to protect water quality. (The Chesapeake Bay Program is a regional multi-state and agency partnership committed to protection and restoration of the bay.) As part of its compliance with this agreement, the park will leave 35-foot-wide woody vegetative buffer strips along streams. Although this amount of vegetation would not be historically accurate, historians have determined that this change will not alter the interpretation of the battle landscape in a significant way, as long as the vegetation is kept at a height that permits key views to be maintained. The park's agriculture program has ordered the removal of cattle from the stream corridor as part of the Chesapeake Bay Program agreement.

The restoration of orchards at the park has been an issue for at least ten years. In the past, park management decided to modernize the orchards rather than maintain their historic appearance. As part of the new GMP, the park is now planning to rehabilitate or restore about 160 acres of orchard. Park resource managers will be striving to create orchards with a historic appearance or character, rather than managing for fruit production, which will translate into using fewer chemical fertilizers and pesticides. How the historic appearance or character will be achieved is still being determined, but the park will work with the NPS Olmsted Center in Brookline, Massachusetts, to develop orchard treatment plans.

Public Involvement

Park resource management staff suggest that developing and identifying the park's mission statement, goals, and legislated purpose as part of the 1993 GPRA have been beneficial to the public involvement process, and the inventory and analysis method used to evaluate the landscape has also been a valuable tool. When it came to some of the more difficult decisions for the GMP (such as the removal of trees), park staff were able to walk people through the logic at public meetings using maps, historic materials, the KOCOA analysis, and the GIS analysis. People could examine the changes in specific features over time and understand resource managers' interest in adjusting the park's management direction. This allowed for informed, substantial concurrence on park decisions among the public and national nonprofit environmental organizations.