Audio
2. What is a National Heritage Area?
Transcript
{Intro Music – Ukulele} Peter Samuel: Good afternoon everyone! My name is Peter Samuel and I am the Program Manager for the National Heritage Areas Program for the park service in the Northeast Region. We’re located in Philadelphia, and we’re here to talk about heritage areas and give you some more insights into what the program’s about, and how it works, and what makes it interesting. And I am here with Miriam Akervall. Hello Miriam. Miriam Akervall: Hello! I am the Student Conservation Association Intern for the National Heritage Areas Program here in the Northeast Region. I’m working specifically on communications initiatives including this very podcast. Peter Samuel: Yeah, so we had an idea, which I shared with Miriam when she first came and said, “Oh we have to do a podcast about heritage areas,” and her eyes lit up and she said, “That’s great,” and we are trying to make that happen. We would like your comments and responses for all of those out there who are listening to this. If you have an opportunity, where can they go Miriam? Miriam Akervall: Oh they can go—we have so many places for you to go. You can go to our nps.gov page, which is our official program page which is nps.gov/heritageareas and you can check out our brand-new blog which is live on tumblr at npsnhaprogram.tumblr.com, that’s npsnhaprogram.tumblr.com. Peter Samuel: We’re going to start just talking a little bit about what a heritage area is and I often have to answer that question, whether it be at a party or with friends, and they’ll say, “Oh, what do you do?” and I’ll say, “Oh, I manage the National Heritage Area Program in the Northeast Region,” and usually they give me a blank stare and they have no idea what a heritage area is even though sometimes people are living with a heritage area. What I usually say is, “A heritage area is like a national park, but it’s not owned or managed by the federal government like a national park unit usually is, but it has a lot of the same objectives as a park too: conservery sources, interpret the resources, encourage the recreational uses of the resources. So many of the heritage areas in our region, of which there are 20 in the Northeast Region our of 49 around the country, have trails, they’re along river corridors often, and often they stretch long distances. As an example, in upper New York state there is the Erie Canal, which is a heritage corridor, and it’s over 500 miles long. Now that’s unusually large, but there are other rivers, one that flows into Philadelphia which is the Schuylkill River, and that’s over 120 miles long. So, these are large areas and they’re, as I’ve said, they are not owned or managed by the park service or the government. They’re done as a partnership program and are usually managed by a non-profit entity, 501c3. What makes them important is that the U.S. Congress recognized that they have significant resources; legislation was passed to designate each of these areas to preserve these resources in perpetuity, and they receive federal funds which comes to them through the park service, so that is how we get involved here with these heritage areas because we manage their funding and help provide assistance to them. Miriam, do you have any questions about that? Miriam Akervall: No, that all sounds good to me. It’s been a learning process, you know I came into this position not really knowing much about heritage areas, but I found that it’s a very interesting approach to conservation, whether that be historic preservation, or natural resource conservation, or cultural preservation. It’s just a way to really preserve an area that is somehow nationally important. Peter Samuel: Well, one thing I didn’t mention that I think is critical is that, because these are not owned by the government, they are living landscapes. Sometimes there are federal lands within a heritage area, or state park lands, but the majority of the land is still usually privately owned. The heritage area management organization, within that heritage area, does not have any ability to provide restriction on how people use their land. They certainly can encourage people to be more conscious of the preservation techniques, but they no teeth as we say to impose any regulations on how private citizens would use that land within the heritage area. Generally, the way a heritage area gets work done is to, as I said they are partnership programs, is to work with a large variety of partners, you know, local governments, townships, counties, or state government, as well as community groups or historic preservation groups. The funds that they receive from the National Park Service, for the most part they have to be matched 50-50, so that’s quite an undertaking, especially for these organizations to be able to raise those funds in a variety of ways. Either through private contributions or, as I mentioned that the local government would make a contribution, or foundations, as well as in-kind service. A lot of volunteers are very involved in the heritage area programs. Also, as I mentioned earlier, many of them have fairly extensive trail networks. These, they really take advantage of to have people get really further into the resources of the areas, provide recreational opportunities to the community. Miriam Akervall: Yeah, I think the grassroots, community-driven approach is what really made the heritage areas interesting to me. These are conservation strategies really created by and for the region itself where it’s going to be applied, and I think that’s why people who are involved in the heritage areas are so passionate about their work. Peter Samuel: So, I guess, you know, I’ve given you a little background on what a heritage area is, we’ll keep trying to clarify that as we go through these podcasts. Every time we talk to another person, and we’ll do many interviews throughout this series, you’ll probably get a slightly different perspective on what it means. Whether it is a heritage area director, or whether it’s a partner who’s involved with a heritage area, or we’ll talk a little bit about some of the projects that we do with the whole group of heritage areas and we’ll at some point discuss with consultants who have worked with the program and also get their perspectives on what it means to be a heritage area and what some of the challenges are. Another part of our work in this region is to really encourage the heritage areas to work closely with park units and where we can have a heritage area connect up with a park, and in that way they help a park connect better to their community, and the park can help the heritage area sort of increase their credibility with the park service brand, as you would say, is pretty strong. Coming up we had some interviews already with folks that will turn into themed podcasts. You know, some of them—the projects that we’ve done recently, one is with a group called the Partners for Sacred Places, where they are helping the heritage areas protect churches and synagogues and other religious structures. We’ll talk with the consultants from that group and some of the heritage areas who benefited from that assistance. Another project that we’ve done is economic impact studies for a lot of the heritage areas and those have been eye-opening in terms of what effects are by heritage areas on the communities and sustaining local communities through their support. So, we’ll talk with some of the heritage areas about that, and some of the work that has gone into that project. The other thing that we had recently here in our region is what we call an Organizational Sustainability Workshop. We had consultants come in and talk with the heritage areas about how to strengthen their organizations both through their messaging and strengthening their board and providing more insights in how to diversify their funding. Miriam, do you have some other comments? Miriam Akervall: Well, we’ll also be going out and visiting the heritage areas and bringing back some live audio from various events. We are going to go visit the Essex National Heritage Area, we’ll be at the Schuylkill Sojourn this year as well, so we’ve got some exciting stuff coming this way. Peter Samuel: Anything else Miriam? Miriam Akervall: No, I think that’s all we wanted to cover for today. Thanks everyone for tuning in and stay tuned for more. In the meantime again, you can learn more about National Heritage Areas Program on nps.gov/heritageareas, or check out our new blog on npsnhaprogram.tumblr.com. Peter Samuel: Thanks. {Outro Music – Ukulele} Miriam Akervall: This podcast is supported by the National Park Service Northeast Regional Office. Our music was produced by Dominic Cardea and his ukulele. A special thanks to Bridgeset Sound for providing record equipment for us in Philadelphia. Thanks for listening!
Description
Not quite a National Park and not quite a private organization - National Heritage Areas are true public-private partnership, often preserving areas of landscape scale. So what does that mean?
In this episode, your hosts shine some light on the basic components and functions of National Heritage Areas, and how they fit into communities as well as the National Park Service.
Duration
9 minutes, 55 seconds
Credit
NPS National Heritage Areas Program
Date Created
08/01/2017
Copyright and Usage Info