216 • The George Wright Forum • vol. 34 no. 2 (2017)
Enmeshed in Naturecultures:
A Personal–Global Journey
Steve Brown
Journey
According to the Oxford Online Dictionary, the word journey has two meanings.
1
First,
“an act of travelling from one place to another,” a meaning that conveys a sense of movement,
the physical journey itself, and a deliberate trip or modern-day pilgrimage from one locale
to a destination. Second, journey can mean “a long and often difficult process of personal
change and development,” though equally taken to mean processes of collective change at
organizational levels. In this paper, I explore my sense of journey with regard to work being
undertaken to better address the interconnectivity of cultural and natural heritage at global,
national, and local levels of heritage management and practice. In doing so, I draw on both
meanings of the word journey: that is, my perspectives as transformed by processes of per-
sonal and collective journeying and informed by global travel.
These perspectives are shaped by both my scholarly research and practice in the fields of
archaeology and heritage studies. Importantly, my perspectives on nature–culture integration
have been informed and influenced by my engagement with the work of two global non-
governmental organizations (NGOs): ICOMOS (International Council on Monuments and
Sites) and IUCN (International Union for the Conservation of Nature). I am the current Pres-
ident of the ICOMOS–IFLA
2
International Scientific Committee on Cultural Landscapes
(ISCCL). The ISCCL comprises 160 members from more than 50 countries and is one of
ICOMOS’s 28 specialist scientific committees whose roles are to gather, investigate, and
disseminate information concerning principles, techniques, and policies related to heritage
conservation.
3
I am also a member of the Specialist Group on Cultural and Spiritual Values
of Protected Areas (CSVPA), a group within the World Commission on Protected Areas
(WCPA) of IUCN, which is currently developing best practice guidelines and an edited vol-
ume concerned with conservation, management, and governance,
4
as well as being a member
of the WCPA Specialist Group on Protected Landscapes. By way of personal background, I
am an Anglo-Australian, born in Kenya and, since the age of seven years, a citizen of Australia.
Over more than 30 years I have worked within protected area and Aboriginal heritage agen-
The George Wright Forum, vol. 34, no. 2, pp. 216–228 (2017).
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