Wed 30 Aug 2006
International Cooperation, Networks, and Substantive Issues
Posted by Kent A. Schneider under Enhance & Create Networks , Substantive Priority Issues , International cooperation1 Comment
Kent A. Schneider, Ph.D.
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Southern Region Heritage Program Manager, USDA Forest Service (Retired)
Adjunct Professor, Anthropology Department, University of Georgia, Athens, Georgia
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Thank you for the opportunity to make this submission to the Participation in the Global Preservation Community panel of the Preservation Summit. Although I retired 9 months ago from the USDA Forest Service Southern Region first as a Forest and then as Regional Heritage Program Manager with more than 30 years of creditable federal service, I actively continue my work in international heritage management activities. I have some experiences to share with you that I hope will influence the Panel’s recommendations.
When I began employment as the first full time forest-level archeologist with the Forest Service in the south in 1976 at the young age of 36, I was literally stunned by the wealth and breadth of human and technical resources available to me for historic preservation work. Most profound was that I was instantly networked with foresters, biologists, engineers, land use planners, landscape architects, recreation specialists, real estate specialists, and more. My previous experiences at state and university levels trained me to accept the limitations of my position, namely confinement to a historic preservation division or unit with little or no interaction with professionals in other disciplines required or encouraged. It was pretty much that way across the board in state government and in academia. The availability of these networks in my new Forest Service job was not occasioned as much by people interested in history or prehistory as it was that they needed archeological clearance under the National Historic Preservation Act for their projects to proceed. This did not go unnoticed. These networks gave me access to expertise, records, and technologies many of which I had only heard about. At my fingertips were land acquisition records listing structures on land acquired as National Forest, an incredible set of orthophoto maps and USGS quads covering every square inch of government land, stereo photos, the finest compasses and clinometers, ultrasound cleaning baths, a vast array of digging tools including portable power augers, soil maps, vegetation maps, and more. I took full advantage of these resources to foster heritage management and give my network partners something of value in return. I made sure then, as I did when I retired, that others in federal, state, and local agencies and in some cases the private sector had access to these often hard to get resources too, through partnerships and sharing.
Lessons learned:
1. Some Federal agencies (the Forest Service, like other federal land managing agencies) have vast resources, far more than state agencies and universities, that can be brought to bear by enterprising people on heritage management;
2. Its all about relationships, a 2-way street works when the participants: a) like one another and b) recognize value and agree to exchange.
In the late 1970s, in my regional position, I began visiting the Caribbean National Forest and participating in regional conferences on archeology in the Caribbean Basin. It was quite clear that archeology was the focus, heritage management had yet to be born. The heritage resources on the Caribbean National Forest were historically a part of Basin-wide trade networks. Little was being done to inventory and protect the resources in this Forest. The Caribbean National Forest was home to the agency’s International Tropical Forest Institute and had a huge outreach to the Basin and Latin America. It seemed logical that the Caribbean National Forest would make an ideal place for the Forest Service to form a Cultural (Heritage) Resources management consortium for mutual sharing of ideas and technologies with Caribbean and Latin America colleagues. Prehistorically, so much of this part of the world affected and was influenced by the Gulf Coast. One of Puerto Rico’s SHPO representatives and renowned archeologist, fluent in many languages including Spanish was a Smithsonian Pre-doctoral Fellow with strong OAS, UNESCO and ICCROM ties, agreed a consortium was a good idea and he was hired by the agency.
Lessons learned:
1. Often when a federal agency demonstrates by its actions that it is willing to share its vast resources to attract partners in international settings that can accomplish tasks the agency alone can not accomplish, partners come.
2. Its all about relationships.
In 1992, the Southern Region Forest Service partnered with the Organization of American States and the World Archaeological Congress and held a 5 day International Conference on Environment and Archeology in San Juan, Puerto Rico. This conference was the result of nearly a decade of work bringing together domestic US, Caribbean and other business and management leaders and technical specialists to discuss heritage management, networking and sharing ideas, technologies, and funding. The Conference philosophy which set the tone for the meetings was simple and meaningfully put (Proceedings, page 1):
“The Conference Environment and Archaeology was developed to identify heritage resource issues world wide and to set forth globally coordinated management strategies and priority actions for heritage resources conservation and sustainable use in building a better quality of life for all. The Conference was founded on the premise that the environment has always been culturally perceived and managed by all societies and the ways in which societies have managed the environment are as diverse as the human experience itself. The present environmental dilemma is inextricably intertwined with past human uses of the environment. A full understanding of this dimension, historically as well as today, is urgently needed to successfully alter the human perception of the environment to one that is compatible with sustainable living for today and the future.”
The Conference was innovative in many ways. Several federal agencies partnered with the US Forest Service to help make the conference a success. Participants from 21 nations participated; the conference addressed in an international setting the issues of rescue archeology as well as the business of managing heritage resources, meaning the founding principles of an emerging discipline (heritage management) were unfolding; the 4 themes selected (Interpretation and Interpretive Planning, Technology, Information Management and Networking) were considered key to developing comprehensive and integrated global heritage management strategies with a multi-cultural world, “that will help bring solutions to issues of sustainability as we approach the 21st Century.”(Proceedings, page 1). Apart from the main session room, separate discussion rooms were available for key participants to expand ideas and form partnerships as necessary in a relaxed environment; the Conference language was Spanish with simultaneous translation offered to all participants.
Lessons learned:
1. Forming international partnerships that are fully understood and supported by top line leadership to accomplish clearly articulated and mutually beneficial goals is an adrenalin rush. The synergy and excitement that comes from collaboration with colleagues from other cultures and languages can not be experienced in any other setting. The personal intrinsic rewards are enormous.
2. Few people realize that their seemingly small roles in the business world are the fuel that makes international partnerships for heritage management run. From grounds keepers to secretaries, from directors to assistant Secretaries of State, the right mixture at the right time can bring enormous mutual benefits.
3. Its all about relationships.
Within 2 years following the Conference, a Charter was drawn up (click here to download the Charter). Many of the concepts formulated some 12 years ago remain our hot issues today.
By 1994, formal Memoranda of Understanding were signed setting into motion real on the ground Action Items which enabled sharing of expertise and technologies by participating entities including the US Forest Service, Sweden, Campeche (MX), Nicaragua, and Venezuela. One ground rule was that materials and supplies for specific on the ground actions were paid by the host nation. There was never a cost for expertise, but travel was cost shared. The host nation covered in-country expenses for visiting specialists. Purposes of visits were broad spectrum, covering writing heritage management plans or training in the use of such new technologies as geographic information systems, global positioning, remote sensing, and database management. New sites were found, new information from old sites discovered, new technologies learned. One person from Sweden earned a Ph.D. though the network that enabled him to study in Campeche.
By 1999, the international heritage management consortium had come to an end. Some of the tasks originally agreed to be done, were done. Some of the principals to the original agreements had move to other positions. A lack of funding deterred travel.
I have left out much of the headaches that go with international work. Levels of commitment can change over time. Goals and objectives change. Agreements need regular review and revision or termination. Agency clearance is not always easy to come by, especially when new supervisors come aboard. Funding sources after initial funding are difficult to find. Not once in more than 20 years of international work were we able to get funding from USAID. The story was always the same: we have money, but not for your project.
One of the biggest lessons to be learned is that there are others who have gone on this trek before you and are willing to help guide your efforts. For me, it is clear that in spite of its apparent wealth, the US has some, but not all of the historic preservation or heritage management answers. A central US agency, perhaps the National Park Service’s Conservation Study Institute, to act as a clearing house, not as a gate keeper, might breathe new life for US participation in the global preservation community.
Thank you for providing me an opportunity to share these international heritage experiences by way of this submittal.
Its all about people and good working relationships.
