A CELEBRATION OF THE HISTORY, CULTURE, SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY OF RECHERCHE BAY
CSIRO Marine and Atmospheric Research Auditorium Hobart, Tasmania
26–28 February 2007

A land mapped by stories
Ms Joan Domicelj, AM

Photo: Copyright Bette Mifsud

Joan Domicelj, AM, is an architect-planner, heritage adviser and mediator, with interests in cultural landscapes, world heritage, indigenous issues and human rights. Her Order of Australia membership was awarded in 1999 for national and international 'service to the conservation of cross-cultural heritage'. She has served on international advisory bodies to the World Heritage Committee (ICCROM and ICOMOS) and is honoured to be included in the recent book 60 Women contributing to the 60 Years of UNESCO. Nationally she has served on the initial Australian State of Environment Advisory Council, the Australian Heritage Commission, the NSW Heritage Council and the NSW Land and Environment Court. Currently, she sits on the Sydney Opera House Conservation Council and chairs the Greater Blue Mountains World Heritage Area Advisory Committee.

Cultural landscapes
'the combined works of nature and of man'
Article 1, the 1972 World Heritage Convention

• Recherche Bay is a cultural landscape. Over recent decades, international deliberations on defining outstanding 'cultural landscapes' have been gradual and, at times, painful. Two Australian PhD theses describe the perambulations and subtleties of UNESCO's World Heritage Committee discussions that led to the adoption of current definitions and criteria.

• We non-indigenous cultures are strange. The difficulty encountered in this intellectual process is inexplicable to indigenous peoples. How curious to seek to unite the concepts of 'nature' and 'culture' - the physical and the spiritual – when they have always been inseparable, and always will be! The NSW Greater Blue Mountains Area is a case in point.

• The cultural landscape debate has led to the identification of cultural routes as well as landscapes. Routes connect colonising, pilgrim, trade and exploration sites across the world. Another niche for Recherche Bay. There is the slave route, linking Senegal's Ile de Goree with the Americas and the 12,000 km Andean road system – the Qhapaq Nan of the Incas.

• The articulation of cultural associations with the natural environment, by the unveiling of marks and meanings, is part of the process of understanding any place. This understanding is the precursor to deciding how to care for country, to keep it alive. One ensuing process for conservation planning is set out in the Burra Charter. It offers a basis for custodianship.