Envisioning the Integration of Cultural and Natural Resource Management in the United States

Summary

This is an abstract from the "Military Cultural Resources Management" session, at the 90th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

In the United States, cultural and natural resources are managed following separate sets of regulations, guidelines, methods, and workflows. The US Department of Defense (D0D) and other federal agencies seek to streamline and synergize management efforts by integrating cultural and natural resource management. While attention has been paid to why resource management should be integrated and what the potential benefits will be, how integration can be practically and meaningfully achieved has received minimal consideration. Strategies and tactics for integrating cultural and natural resource efforts, data, workflows, and outcomes are needed. Ideally, such strategies and tactics should 1) align with the agency's mission and the interests of indigenous and other stakeholder communities; 2) employ holistic landscape-oriented perspectives, methods, data models, and digital tools; 3) establish common goals, priorities, workflows, and success criteria; 4) foster collaborative, interdisciplinary, and evidence-based policy and research; and 5) engage the public’s thirst for knowledge about the social and environmental history of planet earth. This poster presents a visioning exercise for strategically planning the large-scale methodological, organizational, and perspectival changes needed to integrate cultural and natural resource management in the United States, with a focus on resources managed by the DoD.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Military Cultural Resources Management   •
• Society for American Archaeology 90th Annual Meeting, Denver, CO (2025)

Keywords

Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 52814