Historical Ecology | Land Use History

This is a focused approach to understanding a property’s history including a field inventory and archival research. Historical ecology comes alive when field evidence—stone walls, cairns, evidence of agriculture, ancient trees, etc.—match up with archival resources from deeds, tax records, and census schedules. In this case the field inventory is geared toward those aspects that are relevant to understanding its history in a land use sense. If your property has/had an old farm, or empty cellar hole, and lots of stone walls, this type of investigation should satisfy your curiosities. See this example.  

Ecological Inventory

It’s impossible to go back to the year 1491 – a North America where indigenous people shaped the land and a full suite of native flora and fauna roamed with them. But we can still create diverse, wild, and sustainable natural areas. A thoughtful ecological plan begins with a proper inventory—mapping out unique natural areas, community types, exotic plants, etc. Informed management recommendations follow, but unlike traditional ecological plans, I make reports aimed towards landowners with depth, and breadth, without technical jargon, and with actionable recommendations. It can be a ‘coffee table management plan’ and /or a custom field guide of your land.

Inventory for Park Master Plans | Interpretive Inventory

What features does your site offer for a dynamic user experience? Every property has a sequence of natural and cultural features worth sharing with others. They might include geology from rock outcrops and glacial boulders, to unique natural communities, to land use history from abandoned crop fields and stone walls. Some sites may be purely ecological, while others may be cultural legacies. The key is to identify the sites that build the story and then winnow the site’s features down into related themes, and build a circulation plan around the sites and story. Identifying what makes your site unique and what makes it typical are good questions to start with. The interpretive inventory serves as a solid basis for trail planning, interpretive themes, and the creation of lasting experiences. Elements from the inventory, with associated concepts and stories, can be brought alive in situ, at a kiosk, a visitor’s center, or on the web. These inventories are best done at the outset of a Master Plan (or before) for proposed parks and preserves. This provides the planning team highly detailed information from which to consider the site through their unique perspective.

Landscape Biography

Described by the Center for Global Heritage and Development as: 

A landscape biography tells the layered life story of a landscape: how it has developed in the continuous interaction between humans and nature. It comprises an in-depth exploration of the genesis of a landscape over time, involving both physical and immaterial dimensions and integrating knowledge from a variety of disciplines.

When you want to know your land from multiple scales and multiple dimensions you have to flip every stone. You know the rock type and how this shaped regional land use. You catalog tree diversity and age structure and map it to settlement history. A full landscape biography takes a deep dive into your land examining its ecological present (an inventory of current conditions) and how it came to be what it is (background context, geology, history, etc.). A full biography draws on archives such as property deeds, census schedules, and tax records to determine who has been on the land what they were doing.

These deep dives combine science, history, and even a little art to create a display piece about your property. Moreover, it allows you to see your property in many new ways. Organizations find it packed with ready made interpretive content. Depending on the size and complexity of the property, I typically spread a Landscape Biography project out over several seasons. See the projects page for examples.

Walks, Talks, and Workshops

Sometimes people just want to take a walk. We can look at sites, snap photos, and jot some notes. A day, or half day on your land will reveal historical land use, dominant plant communities (and why such communities occur there), etc. After our walk, I write up a summary of the day with a few maps, historical aerials, and photos, as applicable. 

Indoors, I give talks to groups on historical ecology (importance of, and process), reading the landscape, wolf trees, ancient trees, and more. I’ve lead hundreds of people on walks in the woods. I can give one-day workshops on interpreting land use, historical ecology, understanding and identifying trees, and the values of ancient trees in global and local contexts. I have also created hybrid online courses in on the same topics.