Interpretation in National Parks: Some Critical Questions

This paper notes an increasing cultural diversity in visitation patterns to protected areas/national parks, and goes on to question a series of assumptions that underpin conservation education and approaches to interpretation in protected areas. It is concerned with content rather than interpretational techniques; it questions the central role of Western, science based ecological thinking in interpretation. The paper stems from research in Minnamurra Rainforest Centre in New South Wales, Australia, which was carried out in a context of multi-culturalism in a postcolonial society, where it is widely acknowledged that Indigenous Australian peoples have significant moral and legal claims regarding the custodianship of natural landscapes. A dialogue between the worlds of museology and protected areas interpretation is developed, which leads to five critical questions for interpretation praxis: Who are the owners/custodians of the areas? How are they and the areas represented? Who speaks for them? What is spoken and why? Who is listening to the messages? There is a description of how the Minnamurra Centre is reacting to the changing conceptual context of its work.