Innovation
Experimentation covers three types of landscapes; Cooktown Botanic Gardens, the Space Base, and utopian settlements such as Somerset.
Landscapes of Defence
The landscapes in the Cape were strongly defended by Aboriginal communities.
Palmer River goldfields reflect fights between Chinese and other gold miners.
Thursday Island was established as strategic settlement and a landscape of evacuation during WWII.
Landscapes of Leisure
National parks are used for eco-tourism. The islands and the reef are used as resorts.
Landscapes of Association with Particular Community
There are significant Aboriginal settlements, some of which are connected to churches.
There are numerous Chinese historic places.
Landscapes of Symbolism
Significant landscapes for Aboriginal communities, include ceremonial grounds and burial grounds. There is also symbolic significance as 'deep North' for non- Aboriginal Australians.
DETERMINING
VALUABLE CULTURAL LANDSCAPES
The assessment of heritage significance of the cultural landscape has been undertaken by a combination of orthodox assessment methods and new methods devised by the research team. These methods were combined in a series of readings from different vantage points to determine the key valuable cultural landscapes within the case study area.
The four readings are according to:
(A) Thematic Study of Queensland History (refer to Report 2)
(B) Australian Heritage Commission criteria (C World Views
(D) Queensland Heritage Register
The orthodox methods include using the AHC criteria for cultural significance and reflecting on the existing places on the Queensland Heritage Register, whereas the new forms of assessment include applying the thematic histories developed for this project, and reading the landscapes through ten world views developed by the research and supplementing the AHC criteria with Criterion I – Iconic Significance.
The five key themes in the thematic study were:
• living in the tropics
• land as a focus of history
• development as prime agent of change
• perception of landscape
• marginal histories.
Table 2.2
Reading the Cultural Landscape according to THEMATIC STUDY (Report 2) LANDSCAPES DEMONSTRATING
Living in the tropics The entire landscape of the 'Tip'.
Environmental determinism
Demonstrating living in extremes of tropical monsoon and dry climate Adventure Tourist
landscapes
Environmental determinism
Demonstrating the danger of living in the tropics
Wenlock River catchment Demonstrating living in flooding which can prevent vehicular movement from Nov – May
Land as focus of history
Coastal landscapes Demonstrating movement of people by sea rather than road because of the inhospitable land
River systems Normanby Demonstrating alienation in wet season and tourist destinations in the dry
Lockhart, Jardine, Ducie, Archer, Holroyd, and Jardine National Parks
Demonstrating wildlife diversity
Demonstrating limited agricultural potential and remoteness.
Weipa mining landscape Demonstrating 20t h century exploitation of primary resources Palmer River Gold fields Demonstrating Aboriginal interests juxtaposed against mining landscapes
Ability to demonstrate exploitation of land through mining
Pastoralists Landscapes Ability to demonstrate 1880s environmental mismanagement and 1980s Land Rights tension.
Grasslands Ability to demonstrate Aboriginal land management by burning.
Ability to demonstrate Aboriginal land management practices taken on by pastoralists
Development as prime agent of change
Weipa Township and port Ability to demonstrate mining development and 1960s transnational mining expansion.
Cooktown Demonstrating evolution of port for gold field wealth The Tip Demonstrating ability to resist development
Telegraph Road, Peninsula Development Road
Demonstrating infrastructure in remote area
Demonstrating the difficulty of development in the Tip Somerset Demonstrating utopian development aspirations Perception of
landscape
The Tip Demonstrating the theme of 'Distance and Isolation' for non- Aboriginal people. Thea Astley '…real Australia does not start until north of Rockhampton'.
Telegraph Road, Peninsula Development Road
Demonstrating responses to Distance and Isolation' (Blainey,1966) Demonstrating iconic outback Australia perceptions
Savanna woodlands &
termite mounds
Does not demonstrate Antipodean image of Tropical Eden Does not demonstrate the European perception of a land of plenty
Marginal histories Aboriginal landscapes
West Cape York and East Cape York
Trading networks
Ability to demonstrate 'cultural areas' which appear to correlate with major drainage systems
Ability to demonstrate continued Aboriginal use of the land.
Sites of Aboriginal resistance Mapoon
Ability to demonstrate Aboriginal fear of white invaders Ability to demonstrate Aboriginal defence of the land
Demonstrating 1960s mining expansion over riding Aboriginal rights Demonstrating Aboriginal identification with site of negative social significance
Mission stations Demonstrating enforced displacement of Aboriginal people.
Demonstrating Christian missionary activities
Cattle stations Ability to demonstrate colonised labour as well as shared frontier Ability to demonstrate consolidation of non-Aboriginal occupancy.
Aboriginal Reserves Mitchell River Delta
Ability to demonstrate 1980s change in attitude to Aboriginal self management
Hope Vale Ability to demonstrate successful Native Title determination Migrant history
Palmer Goldfields Ability to demonstrate significant Chinese immigration
Ability to demonstrate conflict between Chinese miners and Aboriginal communities
Ability to demonstrate sites of former market gardens.
Coast for Pearling Industry Ability to demonstrate Japanese involvement with the pearling industry along the NW coast from 1875-1901.
Cooktown Demonstrating destination for German migrant vessels – 1882-4 Hopevale Demonstrating Lutheran missionaries' activities
Table 2.3
Reading the Cultural Landscape according to the AUSTRALIAN HERITAGE COMMISSION Cultural Significance Assessment Criteria
CRITERION A – Its Importance in the course, or pattern, of Australia's natural or cultural history
• Strong evidence of natural evolution.
• Strong evidence of natural processes, particularly hydrologically and the bio-diversity of natural features
• evidence of diversity of cultural attitudes CRITERION B – Its possession of
uncommon, rare or endangered aspects of Australia's natural or cultural history
• Existing National Parks
• Aboriginal Forest Culture demonstrates rare way of life.
CRITERION C – Its potential to yield information that will contribute to an understanding of Australia's natural or cultural history
• National Parks have potential to yield information
• Aboriginal Cultural Life
CRITERION D – Its importance in demonstrating the principal characteristics of: A class of Australia's natural or cultural places or environments
• National Parks monsoonal Landscape are characteristic of natural place.
• Aboriginal Cultural Practices
CRITERION E – Its importance in exhibiting particular aesthetic characteristics valued by a community or cultural group
• Cape York has a growing national aesthetic,
particularly as an aerial view. It also has an aesthetic as a natural landscape of 'Fear'.
CRITERION F – Its importance in demonstrating a high degree of creative or technical achievement at a particular period
• Evident as communication systems, e.g. roads, overland telegraph stations, Coen Telegraph Station.
CRITERION G – Its strong or special associations with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons
• Indigenous community, Chinese community
CRITERION H – Its special association with the life or works of a person, or group of persons, of importance in Australia's natural or cultural history
• Captain Cook, Joseph Banks and Ludwig Leichhardt.