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In 1996 there was an education strategy for Western Australia's Albany Highway that is translatable to the Midlands Highways in Tasmania, and indeed almost any other highway anywhere in Australia or indeed elsewhere. It flagged strategies that could be used in the context of a project to:
- Increase public awareness of LANDliteracy, Landcare and other environment strategies;
- Market the LANDliteracy ethic in a multi-dimensional way, and to a wider audience;
- Promote ecosystem rehabilitation and sustainable land management strategies.
The term ‘land literacy’. This term succinctly describes the ability to read the land. Clearly, if more people could detect the early signs of land degradation this would foster more affective holistic approaches to designing LANDliteracy strategies in both urban and rural areas. Moreover, social and political responses to land custodianship would be enhanced if there were an higher level of LANDliteracy; particularly in urban areas.
LANDliteracy has been defined as; “the ability to read and appreciate the signs of health in a landscape’ ...[and]...by implication, this definition also implies the ability to read the signs of ill-health in a landscape.”
By this definition LANDliteracy is a reason for including ‘cultural production’ in the LANDliteracy equation. The LANDliteracy idea has its roots in Kerela India where it is a participatory process that engaged people in environmental management issues and typically using cultural producers in education and marketing strategies. Kerala's 'total literacy' [Link] program and Kerala's 98% 'literacy level' has enabled not only effective social programming but also what can be understood in a contemporary context as 'citizen science' programming. In more ways than one the idea gave Landcare a context in Australia.
Importantly, there is a place for cultural production in a Landcare context and thus LANDliteracy. Terry White [Link] says; “Art [cultural production] has to do with the awakening of interest, with curiosity and discovery. [A cultural producer] is one who perceives the world otherwise than we are accustomed to perceive it. And since custom leads to established views and established views are the opposite of perception as an active process, the result is that we see the world less and less. That is why we need art, and why anyone who wishes to perceive the world around them must have recourse to art.” ... [Link]
White points to cultural production's potential role in exposing more and more in 'the land', 'place', 'cultural landscaping' and if cultural producers are collaborating with landcarers, ecologists, environmental activists – and perhaps even more still in multifaceted ways.
LANDliteracy is a multi-dimensional idea in that it calls in question an individual’s experience, and perception(s) of, ‘the land’, 'place', 'PLACEmaking and PLACEscaping from a culturally defined positions. Sensual experience – sight, sound, taste, touch, smell – and intellectual observation(s) of the land through the physical and social sciences mean that we experience the land in a multi-faceted way. Likewise, art is multi-dimensional in that it draws upon culturally determined belief systems, as well as sensual and intellectual experiences, to make sense of the world.
Cultural production provides a channel through which LANDliteracy can be articulated and developed. So, when one talks about 'weeds' the automatic inference is that a cultural landscape is in some some way compromised. However, almost inevitably the assessment of a plant as being a'weed' is a case of subjective deeming.
As it is in business it useful to audit an operation to make an assessment of its assets and liabilities in order develop relevant strategies. Likewise, its valuable to do so in regard to landscapes in an environmental, cultural, social and economic context. In Kerala the citizenry in the 1990s undertook such a project and discovered that there was the capacity to, and real potential to, produce a new and additional crop.
In a 21st Century context with the 'willow weed concept' in mind it might be worthwhile doing a resource cum ECOaudit on several selected 'willowed waterways' to assess their relative 'health' objectively. In a technology cum institutional context such an exercise would be unlikely to get financial support but if the 'Kerela model' cum 'citizen science model' were to be followed it might well be realisable.
White points to cultural production's potential role in exposing more and more in 'the land', 'place', 'cultural landscaping' and if cultural producers are collaborating with landcarers, ecologists, environmental activists – and perhaps even more still in multifaceted ways.
LANDliteracy is a multi-dimensional idea in that it calls in question an individual’s experience, and perception(s) of, ‘the land’, 'place', 'PLACEmaking and PLACEscaping from a culturally defined positions. Sensual experience – sight, sound, taste, touch, smell – and intellectual observation(s) of the land through the physical and social sciences mean that we experience the land in a multi-faceted way. Likewise, art is multi-dimensional in that it draws upon culturally determined belief systems, as well as sensual and intellectual experiences, to make sense of the world.
Cultural production provides a channel through which LANDliteracy can be articulated and developed. So, when one talks about 'weeds' the automatic inference is that a cultural landscape is in some some way compromised. However, almost inevitably the assessment of a plant as being a'weed' is a case of subjective deeming.
As it is in business it useful to audit an operation to make an assessment of its assets and liabilities in order develop relevant strategies. Likewise, its valuable to do so in regard to landscapes in an environmental, cultural, social and economic context. In Kerala the citizenry in the 1990s undertook such a project and discovered that there was the capacity to, and real potential to, produce a new and additional crop.
In a 21st Century context with the 'willow weed concept' in mind it might be worthwhile doing a resource cum ECOaudit on several selected 'willowed waterways' to assess their relative 'health' objectively. In a technology cum institutional context such an exercise would be unlikely to get financial support but if the 'Kerela model' cum 'citizen science model' were to be followed it might well be realisable.
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