Place-Making for Regional Conservation: Negotiating Narratives of Stability and Change

Human ability to adapt to shifting ecological regimes is tied to flexibility in our senses of place to engage and expand spatial and temporal scales. The challenge of regional conservation is to build intelligible senses of place from a mosaic of land uses that seemingly compete with one another and have difficulties scaling-up to characterise a regional geography. A regional place-making framework is developed that connects ecological relationships, structural forces of society and socio-cultural meanings in ways that negotiate tension between narratives of stability and change. Place-making asserts change as aspirational narratives of what should be, and inclusion of a temporal scale that recognises future states of conditions and relationships across communities. Place-making asserts stability due to concerns for restoring native ecosystems and production of socio-cultural heritage. Regional place-making is where global narratives meet local particularities in ways that integrate and prioritise narratives linked to stability and change.