Jamaican weevil (Lachnopus sp.) by Ted Lee Eubanks
One man alone can be pretty dumb sometimes, but for real bona fide stupidity, there ain’t nothin’ can beat teamwork. Edward Abbey
There is really no limit to interpretative subjects within our chosen world of nature, history, and culture (blandly known as heritage). But, often the subjects that are the most important to our interpretation are among the most obscure. How do we bring that which is hidden or concealed to the attention of the world?
Here is an example. There is a world of “stock” content available for interpreting bald eagles and monarch butterflies. The result? An abundance of interpretive materials (signs, brochures, displays) about these two species. What happens when you need to interpret a species (let’s stick with nature) that is poorly known and for which there are few or no illustrations or content?
The Foot-high Forest by Ted Lee Eubanks
Here is are couple of examples of why we promote a “do it yourself” approach in guerrilla interpretation. I recently completed a set of interpretive panels for a new wildlife sanctuary on Galveston Island, Texas. The new sanctuary, perched on the lip of the island, hosts a variety of wildlife species poorly known to both scientists and the public.
Yet, for our interpretive plan to be effective, we needed to show many of these obscure species. The solution? Do it myself. I spent many days hiking the preserve, photographing those tiny insects and obscure birds that would be critical to the efficacy of our panels.
Through this effort, I gathered a collection of photographs that allowed us to create three panels of nothing but images to accompany the storyline panels. To be honest, we could have easily created another dozen panels with all of the images I took.
Coastal Heritage Preserve Insects by Ted Lee Eubanks
The value of this effort extends beyond interpretation. For example, I photographed a robber fly known only as Proctacanthella robusta. This beach-roving predator has been only rarely photographed. In fact, my image in Bugguide (an on-line repository for insect images created by Iowa State University) is the first ever deposited there (even though their collection has grown to over 1 million images). Science benefits from our interpretive inventory efforts as well.
The image at the top of the page is another example. This weevil has no name. It has yet to be described by science. I photographed this fancy insect in the Cockpit Country of Jamaica while working on another interpretive project, the Caribbean Birding Trail (CBT). I used this image in interpreting one of the more important storylines in the CBT interpretive plan, the one dealing with island endemism.
[Please check out the CBT website at the link above. I love the way that the storylines (subthemes to some of you) from my interpretive plan scroll across the top of the landing page.]
Guerrilla interpretation is entirely focused on applied interpretation, not theory. The goal is to help develop interpreters that are self-sufficient, capable of independently taking an interpretive project from inventory to planning, planning to design, and from design to fabrication. To be able to work as a guerrilla interpreter, you need to be able to do it yourself.
I will give a short talk about guerrilla interpretation at the NAI conference in Corpus Christi, 8-12 November 2016 , and I hope to see you there.
How did life come to be left out of Austin’s future?
Hurricanes, earthquakes, and tornados are considered forces of nature. With these, we expect the worst. A force of nature, beyond our control, is to be feared.
Life itself is a force of nature. Life, as a force, is inexorable, relentless. Life, too, is beyond our control. We can destroy life. We cannot create new life where none existed before.
Life expands and evolves to fit every niche and opportunity, given enough time and progeny. The more diverse the niches available (like a tropical rainforest), the richer and more varied the life that occupies them.
Biodiversity refers to the variety of life on Earth at all its levels, from genes to ecosystems. Biodiversity also includes the ecological and evolutionary processes and functionality that sustain it. How well an ecosystem is functioning is a critical concern in the conservation of ecological systems.
Roemer’s spurge (Euphorbia roemeriana), found only within a few counties in the Texas Hill Country by Ted Lee Eubanks
Cities have biodiversity, too, usually a shadow of what existed before. Mirabeau Lamar visited Waterloo (the village that preceded Austin) in 1837, and shot a bison near what is now the corner of Congress and West 7th. The bison are gone from Austin. John James Audubon, visiting Galveston the same year, saw more ivory-billed woodpeckers along Buffalo Bayou than any place he had previously visited. The woodpecker is extinct.
Imagine Austin is Austin’s newest comprehensive plan for the future. One way to plan for the future is to learn from the mistakes of the past. As George Santayana said,
Those who do not remember the past are condemned to repeat it.
The environment is one of the eight priority programs listed in Imagine Austin. The plan states,
Our open spaces and preserves shape city planning, reduce infrastructure costs, and provide us with recreation, clean air and water, local food, cooler temperatures, and biodiversity.
Not much more is said about biodiversity in the plan. In other words, not much more is said about the diversity of life, or about Austin’s natural patrimony.
Indian blanket moth (Schinia volupia), Colorado River, Austin, Texas, by Ted Lee Eubanks
CodeNEXT is the current phase of the Imagine Austin visioning effort. CodeNEXT will rewrite the Land Development Code (LDC). The most recent draft is titled The Next Austin: Manage our growth, keep our character, and details strategies to “preserve, protect and enhance the City’s natural and built environment.” Biodiversity is mentioned only once in this draft, and no strategy is presented to conserve or restore biodiversity.
There are easily one thousand species of terrestrial and aquatic plants and animals in the Shoal Creek watershed. If we add soil bacteria, nematodes, earthworms and the like, the number would jump even higher.
The greatest threat to biodiversity in our watershed is development. The logical remedy is to regulate development. CodeNEXT is going to shape the next LDC, the regulations that control development. On biodiversity, this first draft is silent.
The greatest threat to biodiversity in our watershed is development.
How did life come to be left out of Austin’s future? Curiously, there is little mention of historical preservation in the draft, either. Heritage is only mentioned when it references trees.
Here is one possible explanation. Complex, amorphous issues such as biodiversity and historic preservation are difficult to shoehorn into forms that fit well into regulatory codes. In preservation, cities focus on preserving distinct architectural styles that are simpler to quantify and define. Although the end goal should be to preserve the cultural and social fabric of the community (i.e., people), what is reflected in code is the protection of old buildings (i.e., things).
The same is true for biodiversity. City planners cannot begin to address the conservation needs of the thousands of species within the city’s limits. Therefore, planners and regulators focus on a manageable number of species that are easily recognized for their aesthetic value – trees. For the remaining species, the vast majority of what comprises biodiversity, the codes and regulations are silent. Barring the presence of an endangered species (a federal law), biodiversity other than trees is unprotected.
Imagine Austin does profess a commitment to conserving biodiversity, but only within the context of “our open spaces and preserves.” Yet, CodeNEXT takes this aspiration no further. Shouldn’t goals be established for biodiversity conservation and restoration within all of our open space? Shouldn’t funding be identified for such an effort?
Most cities are becoming more sensitized to protecting and restoring heritage landscapes, not less. The good news, however, is that the flaws in the current draft are acts of omission. My concern is with what’s missing.
My suggestion is that natural and built landscapes be separated, and a completely new strategy be developed for the conservation and restoration of Austin’s biodiversity. In addition, the strategy for built landscapes will need to be rewritten to include historical and cultural preservation.
Given that the current team of experts is responsible for the gaffe, I would suggest inviting a few new team members to help save this draft from an ignominious fate. Without a major rewrite to integrate the conservation and restoration of biodiversity in our region into our building codes, this draft is unacceptable both as a statement of principle as well as policy.
Texas bluebonnet (Lupinus texensis) by Ted Lee Eubanks
A century ago, lumbering, followed by wild fire, completed denuded this forest. Pine Creek Gorge, Pennsylvania
What stands between our heritage and the inability of man to control his greed is law.
Europeans came to this country over 400 years ago, and were blessed by what they believed to be limitless resources. The land seemed fertile beyond reason or imagination, and wildlife could be harvested without concern for its diminishment. Or, so they thought.
Theodore Roosevelt is the better known of a generation that came to realize the risk rapaciousness and predatory greed presented to our country’s natural heritage. Roosevelt and his colleagues such as Gifford Pinchot, Edgar Lee Hewett, John Muir, Frank Chapman, John F. Lacey, J.T. Rothrock, Myra Lloyd Dock, and George Bird Grinnell could see that without direct action, without government involvement, the feast would continue unchecked, leaving only a few moldy scraps for future generations.
Theodore Roosevelt and Gifford Pinchot were faced with millions of acres of cutover lands being abandoned after they were timbered. Fires constantly raged through the debris left after the harvesting; watersheds were eroding, silting rivers and streams.
States (such as New York and Pennsylvania) and the federal government moved in to begin the restoration of these lands. They bought these worthless lands from owners eager to sell.
Roosevelt recognized that we also needed a system of refuges where wildlife could flourish. One reason? We needed sources of wildlife, especially game animals. for restoring those lost in the Big Cut. Pennsylvania, for example, began reintroducing Rocky Mountain elk (the native eastern elk Cervus canadensis canadensis was extinct by this time) and white-tailed deer (!) in the early 1900s.
Edgar Lee Hewett’s inspiration, the Antiquities Act, and John F. Lacey’s Lacey Act (Lacey also helped with the Antiquities Act) are examples of legislation that pushed the federal government into conservation. The modern game laws were enacted in the early 1900s, bringing market hunting under control. The National Park Service and the U.S. Forest Service were created in this same period.
Market Hunter
What stands between our heritage and the inability of man to control his greed is law. Through law, we established a system of public lands that is the envy of the world. Through law, we defined the limits to which we would allow our water and air to be fouled. And, through law, we protected land rights, establishing a clear demarcation between a public interest and one that is private.
Malheur National Wildlife Refuge, currently occupied by a self-styled militia, is a perfect case in point. According to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, “In 1908, wildlife photographers William L. Finley and Herman T. Bohlman discovered that most of the white herons (egrets) on Malheur Lake had been killed in 1898 by plume hunters. After 10 years, the white heron population still had not recovered. With backing from the Oregon Audubon Society, Finley and Bohlman proposed establishment of a bird reservation to protect birds, using Malheur, Mud, and Harney lakes.”
In other words, the Roosevelt administration set aside this property to help restore heron and egret populations devastated by the plume trade. Roosevelt’s original executive order included only those excess federal lands that had not been claimed by homesteaders under the federal programs that had been created to attract them. Eventually, additional lands were added to Malheur through purchase from willing sellers.
These are called public lands for a reason. We the people own them; we the people conserved them; we the people restored them.
Conservation and restoration efforts like Malheur have been funded by American taxpayers for well over a century. These are called public lands for a reason. We the people own them; we the people conserved them; we the people restored them.
Woman Wearing Feathered Hat by Bassano, whole-plate glass negative, 7 July 1911
The people who work for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the U.S. Forest Service, the National Park Service, and the other state and federal land resource agencies have done a wonderful job working for us to protect our shared natural patrimony. The next time you get a chance, thank them for their service.
As for the people occupying Malheur, they are thieves trying to steal our shared natural heritage. There is nothing patriotic or admirable about thievery.
The people at Malheur would like to remove from the public domain assets that would accrue to themselves. They would like to return to a time when government had no role in protecting our national heritage. Look at the photographs that I have included in this article. They reflect that time.
Regardless of the strategy being used by the federal government to bring this stalemate at Malheur to a close, those occupying the refuge are breaking the law. Americans have worked for generations to conserve and restore this heritage once at risk, and now a handful of mindless ultra-rightests would like to snatch that heritage away.
I understand our government’s wish to not make these people martyrs. Waco is still too fresh in our memories. But, there is a limit to patience. These lands are owned by we the people. And we, the people, have a right to reclaim that which is ours.
Here is one final photograph and anecdote to consider, this one from Western Colorado. These are bison hides.
Buffalo Hides in Western Colorado
The hides were often shipped by train to Pennsylvania and New York to be processed in tanneries. Some of these tanneries were in an area where I have worked, now call the Pennsylvania Wilds. I have walked around the ruins of these tanneries, a sobering stroll.
Most of the hemlocks in those forests, once called Penns Woods, were felled for their bark. Tanneries would first soak the hides in water, then lime, then tannic acid derived from the hemlock bark. Tanneries then dumped all of the waste (flesh, hair, lime, tannic acid) back into the streams and creeks where the tanneries preferred to be located. These tanneries proliferated in New York and Pennsylvania, any area with an abundance of water and hemlock.
Arroyo Tannery, Elk Co., PA
This is a photograph of the tannery at Arroyo, in Elk County, PA. This image is from around 1910, the height of the hide tanning era. Notice the denuded slopes behind the tannery. The river in front of the tannery is the Clarion.
After J.T. Rothrock visited in the late 1800s, he told his wife that only two words came to mind to describe the Clarion – desolation and abomination.
Consider the environmental impacts of this process. First, market hunters slaughtered the bison. Next, “bark peelers” cut all of the hemlock. It has been estimated that one tannery alone used 100,000 cords of hemlock bark from an estimated 400,000 trees over its 20-year history. Finally, they dumped all of the waste into pristine rivers and streams – lime, tannic acid, flesh, and hair.
Of course, I have ignored the social and cultural costs of this process. The bison were slaughtered not only for their hides. They were slaughtered as a way to control the remaining tribes of Plains Indians and to force them to reservations.
Bison Skills in Saskatchewan
The forests of the Pennsylvania Wilds were completely obliterated during this era (post Civil War through early 1900s). Finally, at the turn of the century, Joseph Trimble Rothrock began taking his wagon through these devastated forests to photograph the wreckage. He returned to Philadelphia and gave lantern slide shows showing the “city people” in the east the extent of this ruination.
Through his efforts (and those of his acolytes such as Gifford Pinchot) the public finally forced the state into creating a forest bureau (now part of Pennsylvania DCNR) and a school of forestry in Mont Alto. Acquisition of these cutover lands by the state would soon follow, beginning over a century of restoration. The result of this effort is millions of acres of state forest in Pennsylvania, one of the world’s largest FSC certified sustainable forests.
The federal government has played a role in this restoration, as well. When the U.S. Forest Service first established the Allegheny National Forest in western Pennsylvania, locals ridiculed the land purchased as the “”Allegheny brush-patch.”
Clarion River, Elk Co., PA, by Ted Lee Eubanks
This final image is one of my own of the Clarion today. Arroyo is now part of the Allegheny National Forest. A section of the Clarion that crosses the national forest is now designated as a National Wild and Scenic River.
Let that soak in for a minute. In about a century, the Clarion has gone from “desolation and abomination” to “wild and scenic.” That recovery is due, in large part, to the efforts of the U.S. Forest Service and the PA DCNR Bureau of Forestry.
Now, virtually all of the land in the region is public (national and state forests), the only way this devastated region would have ever recovered.
The threats remain, however. The land purchased for the Allegheny National Forest, in many cases, only included surface rights. With the fracking boom, the forest has become riddled with active wells and pads. State forests have been opened to oil & gas development. Yet, with a recent change in administrations, there is hope that this too will be addressed.
This is the lesson that I take away from my studies of conservation history. Man’s rapacious, insatiable greed is inborn and indelible. Greed is an inexorable force, relentlessly searching for the tiny cracks where our attention wanes. Without the rule of law, and never-ceasing vigilance by we the people, man inevitably slides back into the dark abyss.
We have proven, time and time again, that we can change this world for the better. We will have to prove this again and again if this world is going to survive.
Man’s rapacious, insatiable greed is inborn and indelible. Greed is an inexorable force, relentlessly searching for the tiny cracks where our attention wanes. Without the rule of law, and never-ceasing vigilance by we the people, man inevitably slides back into the dark abyss.
Actually, I stole the form, and then modified it to fit my specific need. Pablo Picasso is most often credited with the form (good artists copy, great artists steal), but I can find references from T.S. Elliott (the immature poet imitates; the mature poet plagiarizes), Igor Stravinsky (lesser artists borrow; great artists steal), and William Faulkner (immature artists copy, great artists steal). I suspect that they all stole the form from someone else.
Steve Jobs used the same form in developing his rationale for lifting ideas such as the computer mouse from others. Jobs said, “It comes down to trying to expose yourself to the best things that humans have done and then try to bring those things in to what you’re doing. I mean Picasso had a saying he said good artists copy great artists steal. And we have always been shameless about stealing great ideas.”
Jobs found a way to hide in the shadow of another (in his case, Picasso) to justify his thievery. Steve Jobs had visited Xerox’s Palo Alto Research Center in the late 1970’s, and saw a demonstration of a new three-button computer mouse. The problem? The mouse cost $300 to manufacture. Jobs took the Xerox idea to an industrial designer and developed a new mouse with only one button. The cost dropped to $15. Jobs had invented his mouse with a Xerox idea that he lifted.
The Macintosh and its mouse benefited humankind; we justify the theft as being a necessary part of the creative process. Newton’s quote comes to mind, “If I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of Giants.” Does it matter that Xerox’s contributions have been forgotten, and that others like Jobs have been credited with what Xerox created first?
Interpreters steal. Some steal content, like photographs for an interpretive panel that someone else took. Some cut-and-paste from Wikipedia, or lift from a graduate student’s thesis that surely no one will ever remember. These are all examples of blatant theft.
Interpreters also steal ideas. We freely share our interpretive techniques and concepts. We are flattered when others use them.
Interpretation benefits from the sharing of ideas. We advance as a whole when someone creates an improved way to design a panel, or develops a better wayfinding app, or uncovers a new insight into a moment in history. But, where do we draw the line between sharing and stealing?
Eric Westendorf recently wrote an article for Forbes titled Stealing in the Classroom: Why Teachers Should Steal Like Coders. He identified three qualities of coders that have led, he believes, to a more progressive coding environment.
• Coders collaborate.
• Coders seek examples of features they are trying to build.
• When coders find a good example, they also find the code. Coders improve on the “stolen” code, then share the improved code with the world of coders.
I know nothing of coders; I assume that Westendorf’s assessments are accurate. I also see some of these same characteristics in interpretation. We do collaborate, we do look for better ways, and we do, at times, share with others.
Interpretation is locked in a small room without windows, and we inhale each other’s exhaust.
What happens when the same ol’ ideas are being stolen and circulated? Rather than looking for the better way, what if the interpreter (or, more specifically, their employer or client) is looking for cheaper or less risky ways? What if efforts to standardize interpretation are more focused on limiting risk than inspiring creativity?
Interpretation is locked in a small room without windows. We inhale each other’s exhaust. Our ideas are recycled rather than rekindled.
Whether or not we steal isn’t the issue. We steal from the wrong people. Rather than swiping from each other, we should be going outside of the profession to find new ideas and approaches. Graphic design, environmental sociology, geography, creative writing, art history, advertising, and computer engineering are examples of disciplines with ideas and approaches that could help stretch the outer bounds of interpretation.
Here is an example. In the past couple of years, I have used flat design in the development of interpretive panels. Flat design has been popularized in the design of software user interfaces, and argues for simplicity, clarity, and honesty of materials. This approach uses simplified design (forget the text shadows, photographed backgrounds, and signs shaped like a salmon), bright colors, and visual clarity to enhance the user’s experience.
Flat design seems a natural for the interpretive environment. A quick review of the research literature reveals the need to increase the number of people that actually read interpretive panels (or are attracted to read them in the first place).
Flat design would appear to be a concept, a philosophy, to steal. The software industry will not be offended. They stole the idea from the Swiss and the Bauhaus school in 1920s Germany.
Whether or not we steal isn’t the issue. We steal from the wrong people.
The industrialized interpretation promoted by the agencies and, to a less degree, the universities, has done much to standardize interpretation. Standardization also stifles. Interpretation, as an independent discipline, needs to escape these prescribed limits. Looking outside of the profession for inspiration and ideas is an obvious path forward.
Truth is ever to be found in the simplicity, and not in the multiplicity and confusion of things – Isaac Newton
Interpretation gravitates to the complex. Maybe all human systems have a natural inclination toward convolution, like stormwater sprinting downstream. Bureaucracies certainly hint at this drift. There is refuge to be found in the minutia of complexity.
The principles of interpretation aren’t complex. The rules are limited; the doctrine is easy to grasp. The role of the interpreter is to simplify the complex, not to complicate the simple.
What is difficult to master is the practice of interpretation. The underpinnings of interpretation can be fathomed in a single sitting; the skills that are required demand time, patience.
One can master art history without being an artist. One can become an expert in modern American poetry without being a poet. There is value in art historians and literary critics.
And certainly, one can learn the principles of interpretation without being an interpreter.
The role of the interpreter is to simplify the complex, not to complicate the simple.
Interpretation, as a practice rather than a subject, is mastered through the application of simple principles using skills and intuition that are gained through years of repetition and practice. These principles and skills are means to an end, not ends unto themselves.
The end or objective of interpretation is revelation (Sam Ham calls this objective epiphany). This objective defines interpretation. Revelation is what separates interpretation from its relatives such as technical and scientific writing.
The techniques used to achieve this objective are as numerous and as varied as the people who have mastered the practice. A guitar may have only six strings, yet no two guitarists approach the guitar with identical technical skills. A work of art may consist only of paint and canvas, but the techniques used by a painter are as individual as a fingerprint.
An interpreter gains more than skills with practice; an interpreter gains intuition. A standup comedian quickly learns how to read the crowd. An interpreter learns how to gauge his or her audience. A comedian counts laughs; an interpreter counts revelations.
An interpretive approach that provokes revelation is successful; one that doesn’t fails. Interpretive success or failure, or which techniques are better or worse, are arguments that are only meaningful within the context of revelation. Otherwise, these debates only complicate the practice of interpretation.
Guerrilla interpretation is an applied approach to the craft. At the heart of this approach are the basic, elementary skills that must be mastered to become a practitioner of the interpretive arts. Knowledge and creativity are critical to the practice, as well. Yet without the skills, knowledge and creativity are impossible to express or apply in a way that stimulates revelation.
Simplicity and repose are the qualities that measure the true value of any work of art – Frank Lloyd Wright
