Heritage interpretation is the craft of making connections between the experiences and mental models of people with the meanings of places and things. The craft and art of interpretation is a tool for the management of special places and not an end in and of itself. My background and writing on interpretation is to find greater purpose for interpretation than currently found in the field today.
My definition:
A communication tool that forges emotional and intellectual connections between an audience’s experience and place meanings in order that the audience celebrate and conserve that place.
Board of directors in Pico Bonito National Park in Honduras carry out interpretive and public use planning in their park as part of the Public Use Planning Program.
I was a lead planner to develop an interpretive plan for the entire 15-county Lumber Heritage Region of northcentral Pennsylvania (as well as the overlapping Pennsylvania Wilds region). Worked with the planner who developed the core exhibit of the Holocaust Museum in Washington, D.C. The purpose of the plan was to develop culture- and nature-based products that would attract visitors to spend more time and money purchasing local products for local economic development in this rural region.. See article in Legacy on planning in the Lumber Heritage Region.
Jon and Fermata,
Inc. developed an interpretive framework for all of the Poconos region and Wyoming Valley of Pennsylvania. Jon will facilitate a feasibility
study for a guide certification program in the Poconos. Also working on a
framework for the
Illinois RiverValley
which goes from
Chicago
to the
Mississippi River.
Small-Scale Interpretive Planning
I was lead planner for the interpretive plan of the 14-acre Quinta Mazatlan, a lead site at the World Birding Center in the Rio Grande Valley, South Texas. The goal was to link interpretation very closely with management goals.
I wrote Park Planning for Life, the manual for the Public Use Planning Program in World Heritage Sites. The manual won second place in the interpretive training category of the 2003 National Association for Interpretation Media Awards Competition. It was submitted for the interpretive training component.
Nature Guide Training
I managed RARE’s Nature Guide Training Program in Honduras (1997–99), coordinating budget and staff to train undereducated rural people to become bilingual nature interpretive guides. I later co-wrote the five-volume methodological manual to run the program with Cynthia Mayoral. One volume includes the editing of the first Guide’s Guide, an interpretive volume in Spanish that teaches natural history, conservation, interpretation, and guiding issues to the program students. RARE re-wrote the book in Baja California, Mexico, Yucatán, Mexico, and Petén, Guatemala. Future editions are forthcoming.
Interpretive Program Training
With Fermata, Inc. I designed an interpretive guide training program for the World Birding Center (South Texas, 2005) that focused on training organizations how to link interpretation and conservation and how to build an interpretation program using guides that made that link happen.
See this program testimonial from Jennifer Owens, a participant in the pilot project and currently head of interpretation at Estero Llano Grande State Park in Weslaco, TX.
In September 2007, I gave a four-day workshop outside of Madidi National Park, Bolivia in environmental interpretation to 25 people from across the country. The event was sponsored by the US State Department, Conservation International, and a variety of other Bolivian organizations. Workshop organizers compiled content and fashioned it into a document, part proceedings, part training manual to be used in a Bolivian university. See talks for more information.
As a volunteer, I managed the primary school program and solid waste program at the Simon Bolivar National Zoo and Botanical Garden of Costa Rica, 1993-95. Though called an “educator,” I performed the functions of an interpreter as well. I offered programs to over 6,000 Costa Rican children, curated the natural history objects collection, and participated in all aspects of the program. I also designed and curated an exhibit on solid waste that was part of a solid waste curriculum (see left) for greater metropolitan area schools. I worked with famed museologist, Deirdre Hyde and the program was inaugurated by the Minister of Education in 1996.
Naturalist and Day Camp Instructor
I was a naturalist and day camp instructor for kindergarten children at the Wellfleet Bay Wildlife Sanctuary, part of the Massachusetts Audubon Society sanctuary system. 1992. See article I wrote about sanctuary in The Boston Globe.
I work with the Office of Environmental Awareness of the Smithsonian Institution, researching under curator Judith Gradwohl the Sea Store Module of the traveling exhibition, Ocean Planet. 1992-3.
I have written many articles on how interpretation links to park management and its greater potential to change basic assumptions about the world. For a year and a half I had a column "International Interpreter" in the National Association for Interpretation's magazine, Legacy. I also served as contributing editor for a time.
Interpretive Sign Writer-Editor
I worked as part of the interpretive writing team to edit and lead write signage for Quinta Mazatlan, a lead site at the World Heritage Center which had its inauguration in March 2006.
