High Country Heritage
Nature & People
What are the significant cultural and spiritual values of the Great Eastern Ranges? What are the connections between cultural/spiritual values, community wellbeing, biodiversity values and climate change? How can an appreciation of social and cultural values support community engagement with the conservation?
High Country Heritage: Cultural heritage themes for the Great Eastern Ranges in NSW explores these ‘big’ questions in relation to the NSW section of the Great Eastern Ranges conservation landscape. It provides an overview of the macro-scale social, cultural and spiritual values for this landscape. Three outstanding themes emerge from the history of Aboriginal peoples’ and settler Australians’ high-country experiences.
- ‘Otherness’ – the Great Eastern Ranges as a place apart from ordinary lifestyles, and especially distinct from eastern Australian urban lifestyles; a place to celebrate special life ceremonies and rejuvenate the spirit. Evidence for this ‘otherness’ can be seen in Aboriginal spiritual and ceremonial connections to mountain places; in the high-country as a place for healthy lifestyles, holidaying, bushwalking and skiing; in the iconic and romanticised mythology of the high-country ‘Man from Snowy River’ culture; and in the idea of ‘wilderness’ and inspirational landscapes as forested and rugged mountain country.
- Reliability – the rugged mountain landscape as an oasis (set within the context of a drought prone continent) because of abundant indigenous wild resources, reliable water and dependable high-country grazing. Examples of how reliability supported important cultural experiences and attachments can be seen in big meetings/gatherings of Aboriginal people; in the movement of stock into the alpine country in summer in the south and into high-country during winter in the north; and in the construction of the Snowy Mountains Hydro-Electric Scheme.
- Aboriginal connectivity – the mountains as Aboriginal peoples’ Country for over 22,000 years, including during the last Ice Age and as a place of refuge during the period of colonial settlement. A powerful component of past and current Aboriginal associations with high-country is cultural renewal.
The report touches on the way in which social and cultural values associated with these outstanding themes connect with the biodiversity values of the Great Eastern Ranges landscape. It suggests that there is a strong link between some Aboriginal cultural values (such as those connected with plant foods and medicines) and aspects of biodiversity. However, many Aboriginal and settler Australian cultural values of the great eastern ranges are not directly associated with biodiversity (although they are related to expanses of ‘natural’ vegetation), but rather with landscape scale and contrast.
By outlining the social, cultural and spiritual values of the NSW section of the Great Eastern Ranges, this report provides data that can contribute to the integrated management of both natural and cultural landscape values.
