Cultural Heritage Management: Issues, Trends, and Sustainability in Kakadu National Park

This paper discusses the cultural heritage management practices in Kakadu National Park, including the impact of climate change on cultural heritage sites, principles, problems, roles, and recommendations for sustainability. It covers issues and trends in the park and the roles of different sectors in preserving it.

Running Head: CULTURAL HERITAGE MANAGEMENT
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Cultural Heritage Management

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Executive Summary
The below paper represents the cultural heritage management practices of the Kakadu
national park. Further the issue and trends have been analysed. How the principles and
practices can achieve the sustainability has also been discussed. The below paper represents
the essential need of the culture heritage in the Kakadu national park. The paper also
discusses about the problems that have been faced while maintaining the same. The
sustainability also becomes a question due to certain factors which have been analyzed in a
great length. The problems have veen discussed along with the individual roles and the
recommendations have been provided.

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Table of Contents
Introduction................................................................................................................................2
Impact of climate change on the cultural heritage sites.............................................................2
Principles....................................................................................................................................3
Problems.....................................................................................................................................5
Roles...........................................................................................................................................5
Roles of different persons.......................................................................................................6
Recommendations......................................................................................................................7
References..................................................................................................................................9

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Introduction
Cultural Heritage Management is the practice of keeping the cultural heritage safe and
secure. It also involves the additional practices of cultural conservation, restoration of
artefacts, history and museology. The primary purpose to do so is to provide a coordinated
and structured operation with the primary purpose of defining the purpose of the place. The
cultural heritage management of the Kakadu national park is usually involves in protection
and conservation of the park. Kakadu National Park is one of the greatest cultural heritage
site which is situated within the Alligator Rivers region of the northern territory. It mainly
covers an area of 19806km square (Stemberk, Dolejs, Maresova & Kuca,2018). The size of
the park is around one third of the Tasmania or also just half of the city Switzerland.
Impact of climate change on the cultural heritage sites
Australia along with the rest of the world is terribly facing the change in the climate
and the environment. As a result of escalating atmospheric pressure the additional changes in
the geographical features can be observed such as change in the pattern of precipitation, rise
in the frequency of ENSO, the fluctuation in the intensity of the uncertain events such as
droughts, tropical cyclones, fires, floods and storms (Head, 2017). Due to this there is a heavy
impact on the cultural heritage sites such as Kakadu National Park, Australian Mammal sites,
Fraser Islands and a lot more (Coles, Dinan & Hutchison, 2014).
A rise in temperature projects a direct impact on many species and amphibians.
Global warming is highly affecting the equal segregation of lives of the plant and animal.
Due to this most of the area of the national park has been occupied by the flora and fauna.
The incursion of the salt water into the fresh ecosystems, the change in the seasons,
the intensity of the storms and when there is high dispersal of flora and fauna during the wet
season is the four major key drivers which effects the national park (Bason, 2018). It is
almost always uncertain as to why there is a degree of the uncertainty. It also affected the
expectations of the visitors. The chances are that there is a compression of the tourist season.
Due to changes in the temperature there is significant loss of wetlands. One of the
major impact on the national park is channel widening (Corsale & Vuytsyk, 2018). There is
likely an increase in the intense rainfalls and events which are more frequent. This leads to

CULTURAL HERITAGE MANAGEMENT 4
overflow of the banks and disruption of the Alligator River systems in Kakadu(Wang & Xu,
2014).
Climate change has also affected the ecology of the individual organisms which will
change the level of the populations. There is a disturbance and upheaval in the survival of the
species, the change in the population or the distribution or the number of the extinct species.
Principles
There are majorly six principles which are applied at the cultural heritage sites in
context to the shareholder management and the relevant sustainable strategies. The foremost
and the most primary strategy are to manage the National heritage places and to identify the
concerns and conserve the national heritage values (Baum, 2015). The main aim of the
cultural heritage management is to actively engage themselves into the protection of
biodiversity through ensuring the double safety of the species.
The management of the heritage shall continue to use the available skills knowledge
and standards and in particular shall also make available the technical and the decisions
relating to the community (McEwan, Mawdsley, Banks & Scheyvens, 2017). One of the
principles is also to create the integration among the Aboriginal people who have actually
provided their land on the leasing basis to the director of the national parks. In order to have
sustainability it was decided that certain areas were to be granted to Aboriginals (Dwyer,
Mistilis, Edwards & Roman, 2016).
Conserving the cultural heritage of the park is similar as well as the fundamental to
keep proper management of the park. The utilisation of the natural resources shall be
judicious and ecologically sustainable. The adverse effects on the biodiversity shall also be
kept in the mind (Komppula, 2014). The Australian government has a joint responsibility
with the owners of the cultural heritage management to keep a check on the integrity,
attributes and wetlands of the park.
Kakadu is an important place form the point of view of the tourism and recreational
purposes. In order to achieve the sustainability the traditional owners shall opt for strategies
such as critically designing facilities for the visitors to understand the concept of the park and
using promotional strategies such as hoardings and boards(Scheyvens, Banks & Hughes,

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2016) . This will increase the value of the park from the sustainability point of view and a
consultation is required from the shareholders to get more leverage.
The Kakadu national park is a home for Bininj/Mungguy and depicts the cultural
diversities. It is the duty of the management to actively participate in the cultural programmes
in spreading the general awareness among the visitors of the park. The campaigns can be held
to deliver the ideas and discuss all the aspects of the park (Neirotti, De Marco, Cagliano,
Mangano & Scorrano, 2014). The framework is evolving because some assets of the park are
of fragile nature and sometimes the needs may also clash with those regarding conservation
of the assets.
Lastly through the inclusion of the stakeholders who are the biggest investors the
Kakadu National Park can also be conserved (Smith, 2015). The investors provide funds and
the management in association with them, decides the budget of the park. This way there is a
surety that the maintenance is a necessity and the management also participates actively.
Problems
There are certain problems due to which the national park is getting affected which are as
follows.
 The occurrence of the natural fires due to the thunder and the lighting is destroying
the flora and fauna community of the Kakadu national perk every year. A roundabout
60% of the unanticipated fires occurred which created havoc and about 10% of the
land was burnt and affected (Fitri, Ahmad & Ahmad, 2015).
 The flood plains are also a cause of concern from the point of view of the tourism
purpose and insignificant consequences to the visitors.
 However the other problems can be of the destruction of the infrastructure and the
loss of the knowledge.
 How to integrate the knowledge of the tourism with the commercial needs is again a
drastic event.
 One of the problems is also of the misbalance between the substantial social
objectives and the deliberate cooperation with the shareholders.
 The greatest challenge of the tourism is also how there can be a conversion of private
and the personal assets into the usable assets by the tourists and the visitors.

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Roles
Tourism is categorized as a sector that totally stands out the business activities
worldwide. There are certain sectors which play an important role to analyze the issues and
trend with respect to the roles of public sector, private sector and informational sector
(Buckley, 2004).
In case of private sectors and public sectors the trends suggest that they help in
reduction of the cost in operating and maintaining services. The construction of the capital
projects for making huge investments in the Kakadu national park and to maintain the
structures (Mowforth & Munt, 2015).
Due to the inclusion of the public and the private sectors the nature of the risk has
been subsided. The informational sector also provides the information regarding the basic
attributes and features of the park. The roles are assigned to different persons with different
set of activities. Even visitors are also having some individual roles to play.
There are different education programs which are conducted by the traditional
owners. The living treasures and artists play a vital role in promoting the long term endurance
of cultural heritage in association with the Kakadu national park. However, these kinds of
programs require assistance and coordination form both the public as well as the private
sectors.
Roles of different persons
Tour Guides To guide about the history of the national
park
Gatekeepers To record the entry of each visitor.
Gardners To keep a check on the lush green of the
antional park.
Administration The ofifce bearers keep a check on the
necessary and the requirements for the
species and plants such as raw mud, cages,
food, water, maintenance faciloities. They are
responsible for cahsing the daily activities.
Care takers To take are of the animals and plants when
they fall sick.

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Together it is the duty of each sector to contribute and through the systematic
approach they shall focus on keeping the national park at for future sustainability. Through
the use of technical knowledge and skills the sectors can maintain the cultural heritage of
Kakadu national park. This will also ensure the authenticity of the tourism.
Recommendations
Kakadu National Park is a vast national park; therefore, it is very difficult to manage the
park and keep it healthy and guarding it from weeds, animals and forest fire. There are
several strategies, which can be used to improve the sustainability practices in the forest:
 In order to reduce the forest fire, the forest management system should adopt fire-
sensitive selective fire, which can reduce the amount of fuel in the creeks.
 The park management should also control the weeds grown in the park as they
compete with the natural habitats for the light, moisture and other nutrients. The park
management system should invest significant resources to keep the weeds under
control by undertaking the weed control programs in the park. In the weed
management program, the company should invest in giving priority to different
grasses which can potentially spread to large areas. The park management should also
invest in using the biological control techniques, which can control weed in different
species (Buckley, 2004).
 The feral animals have an adverse impact on the environment; therefore, the park
management should limit their number in the park. Feral animal refers to the animals,
which were local to another country and now they are breeding in the park. The park
staffs conducts work to control these species in the park.
 The park manager should also collaborate with the aboriginal traditional owners to
protect the park with different legislations. The board members of the park
management comprises of the traditional owners of the park so that the park can be
managed efficiently.
 Other than that, the park management should also develop a marketing campaign so
that it can provide a better sustainable environment for the national park. Every
individual in the local community should be aware that their activities performed at
home impacts the environment in one way or another. Therefore, sustainable practices
should be adopted for the program (Mowforth & Munt, 2015). The park management
should also try to calculate and track the carbon footprint and adopt climate friendly

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policies for the organization. The park should adopt 3R rule, which means that it
should reduce the consumption of resources, reuse the manufacturing resources and
recycle resources.
 The national park should also create fundraiser to enhance the funds for managing the
national park. The marketing campaign should have the qualities for building the
customer support for supporting the brand and harnessing the image of the brand. The
park should also adopt the option of sustainable tourism, which means that the
tourism should not impact the local environment (Stemberk, Dolejs, Maresova &
Kuca, 2018). The tourists should be educated regarding the negative impact of the
user activity on the national park.
Conclusion
From the above analysis it can be concluded that the cultural heritage management is
important to preserve and conserve the natural beauty of Kakadu national park. It becomes
necessary that through the contribution of the government of Australia and different sectors
and associated people the national park creates a history for future generations. The problems
that have been referred to shall be turned into the solutions with the systematic approach and
analytical mind. Furthermore, the cultural heritage management shall also be practiced for
keeping the significance of the sites.

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