Reflections on environmental history with a human face: Experiences from a new national park

Environmental History, Oct 2003 by Diamant, Rolf

SEEING THROUGH THE TREES

NOT LONG AFTER the park began interpretive programs, David Lowenthal was invited to share some thoughts and observations in an informal roundtable conversation on Marsh, stewardship, and public interpretation. Lowenthal reminded everyone that Marsh viewed humans as "free moral agents" making critical choices, the consequences of which could be catastrophic for civilization. Marsh envisioned a civil society where citizenship also implied an active, participatory role in managing and conserving land, demonstrating, in Lowenthal's words, "a patriotic ardor for national stewardship."17

Lowenthal said he had two principal concerns about interpretive programs at the park. First, both the idea and the practical application of stewardship should be at the heart of all interpretation at MBRNHP. Visitors need to think about stewardship in the context of their own lives and homes. Second, this park, this place, should be about the nature of landscape change. Visitors today see a green and verdant forest on the slopes of Mount Tom and assume it has always been that way. Somehow park interpreters need to find ways to shake visitors up a little bit and help them look beyond the lush New England greenery to envision a much different landscape-a broken landscape, stripped of its trees and topsoil, gullied by erosion. Only then can visitors begin to grasp the power of people to destroy and also to recover.

Lowenthal's observations echoed the words of David Lacy, an archaeologist with the nearby Green Mountain National Forest, a partner with MBRNHP and the Conservation Study Institute in "A Forest for Every Classroom: Learning to Make Choices for the Future of Vermont's Forests," an intensive professional development program for educators. Lacy guides students to cellar holes and remnant orchards on abandoned farmsteads with sheaves of historic maps in hand. His place-based approach to learning focuses on the nature of landscape change and its relevance for young people. "We look at artifacts and their stories but also look at the larger vision of change" says Lacy, "and the powerful influence people have had through history on land use, shaping all our landscapes, even places that today appear wild. We want students to realize that they too hold this power in their hands and they need to be very thoughtful about the change they put in motion."18

A RESEARCH AGENDA ABOUT PLACE AND CONTEXT

LOWENTHAL AND Lacy's observations drove home the importance of knowing a place well. For a park whose story is so much about place, it was clear from the beginning that there was much to learn about the people, resources, and history associated with the park. Even before the park was open to the public a wide-ranging and intensive research program in environmental history began. The park also benefited enormously from the scholarship and writings of Lowenthal, Robin Winks, and lohn Elder. Lowenthal's recent biography, George Perkins Marsh: Prophet Of Conservation, builds upon his 1958 biography, George Perkins Marsh: Versatile Vermonter and includes much new information, many new sources, and fresh insight into Marsh.19 The University of Washington Press also recently has published a new edition of Man and Nature with a new introduction by Lowenthal. Winks, of Yale University, authored two important biographies: Frederick Billings: A Life and Laurance S. Rockefeller: Catalyst for Conservation.20 Elder has written a number of essays about stewardship. He also has a new book coming out in 2004, Pilgrimage to Vallombrosa: A Mediation in Three Landscapes (Harvard University Press), examining the lessons of George Perkins Marsh in the context of the landscapes of Vermont and Italy that were so central to Marsh's life and work. The first words visitors see in the Carriage Barn exhibit are Elder's: "We must pursue stewardship not simply as the maintenance of valuable resources but also as a way of fostering a broader experience of democracy and community."21