New Cultural Landscapes Online Platform Launched!

Connecting American Historic Preservation Practitioners to What the World is Learning about Cultural Landscapes
US/ICOMOS is pleased to announce the launch today of the US Cultural Landscapes International Community of Knowledge or US/CLICK – a new international knowledge sharing online platform dedicated to cultural landscape practice. US/CLICK is a joint project of US/ICOMOS, the US National Committee of the ICOMOS-IFLA International Scientific Committee on Cultural Landscapes (US/ISCCL) and the University of Massachusetts Amherst Center for Heritage and Society, made possible with the support of the US National Park Service.
US/CLICK offers web and social media-based tools for US practitioners to exchange cultural landscape knowledge with other countries around the world. US/CLICK subscriber will receive notifications when new international cultural landscape content (in the form of breaking research, publications, international events, etc.) is added to the US/CLICK home page. It also offers a new twitter feed, @usicomos_CL, a cultural landscapes events calendar, and more. These tools are designed to build collaboration, breakdown cost and time barriers to international exchange by harnessing new technologies and leveraging traditional face-to-face exchange programs.
The field of Cultural Landscapes is one of most dynamic areas of heritage practice. Globally, heritage conservation is increasingly turning to cultural landscape models; models that recognize both tangible and intangible heritage, the regional to local scales of heritage expression, emphasize the inter-linkages of nature and culture, and acknowledge that, for most places, change is a constant. From food security to sustainable development to climate change, this rich vein of international practice is an enormously valuable resource for US heritage professionals working with designed, evolved and associative landscapes – even while aspects of these approaches challenge some traditional US historic preservation practices.
US/Click is one of six Knowledge Communities US/ICOMOS is a launching as part of its KnowledgeExchange initiative. KnowledgeExchange is suite of web and social media-based tools to leverage existing programs like the ICOMOS network of scientific committees. The goal is to equip a wider circle of US preservationists with more international tools that will help them solve the challenges their communities face, while showcasing innovation in US historic preservation for an international audience. Learn more by visiting www.usicomos.org/knowledgeexchange.
US/CLICK is an open source platform and any user may subscribe here.

Learn more about the sponsors of US/CLICK

The University of Massachusetts Amherst Center for Heritage and Society (CHS) is a multidisciplinary center working with national and international partners to craft new approaches to heritage conservation and communication around the world. CHS brings together scholars working in heritage related fields such as archaeology, history, environmental science, landscape architecture and regional planning, European studies, Native American Indian Studies, Afro-American Studies, Classics, legal studies, and public policy. Additionally, the Center provides undergraduate and graduate students with training and experience in heritage planning and management.

The US National Committee of the International Council on Monuments and Sites (US/ICOMOS) is part of the worldwide ICOMOS network of people, institutions, government agencies, and private corporations who support the conservation of the world’s heritage. Since its founding in 1965, the mission of US/ICOMOS has been to deliver the best of international heritage conservation scholarship and work to the US domestic historic preservation dialogue while helping to share and interpret for the world the unique US system of historic preservation.

The US National Committee of the ICOMOS-IFLA International Scientific Committee on Cultural Landscapes (US/ISCCL) is open to US cultural landscape practitioners. The international counterpart – the International Scientific Committee on Cultural Landscapes (ISCCL) -was created by the International Council on Monuments and Sites (ICOMOS) in partnership with the International Federation of Landscape Architects (IFLA) in 1970. The purposes of the ISCCL are to promote world-wide cooperation in the identification, awareness, study, education and training for protection and management of cultural landscapes; communicate and collaborate with ICOMOS and IFLA; collaborate with the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) on conservation of combined works of nature and humanity; and work with UNESCO World Heritage in assessing, monitoring, and protecting significant cultural landscapes around the world.
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