Petersburg National Battlefield: Earthworks Management Action Plan, Petersburg National Battefield, National Park Service
Andropogon Associates. 1988. Petersburg National Battlefield: Earthworks Management Action Plan, Petersburg National Battefield, National Park Service. Cultural Landscape Management Plans. NPS Northeast Regional Office. Northeast Regional Office
Recently, the issues of management and interpretation have been given a lot of attention at the Earthworks Parks. Like virtually all protected landscapes, the negative consequences of rapid urbanization in the parks'environs are becoming all too visible and exceed the direct damage done by visitor overuse and misuse. Even if development is not visible, the quality of visitor experience is compromised by the sounds of traffic and the odor of industry, making it far more difficult to impart the sense of stepping into the past which has been integral to effective interpretation of the resource. A park's ambiance is also impacted more tangibly by cumulative changes in the landscape as-exotic vegetation overwhelms historic native communities and excess stormwater runoff erodes the hillsides and valleys. Site maintenance is a costly budget item and there has sometimes been too little available for adequate-levels of maintenance. As resources were prioritized by the NPS, some maintenance was deferred, and elsewhere standards were, by necessity, lowered. No easy solu1ons were evident which led to a renewed interest in reevaluating the goals and strategies for management and interpretation. In the past, the stated goal of management and interpretation has been to maintain the setting as closely as possible in its historic appearance, in the case of the Petersburg National Battlefield, 1864-64. In reality, however, the site has changed considerably, which greatly influences its condition today and the management options available to the park
- Type
- Published Report
- Authors
- Andropogon Associates
- Date of Issue
- 1988-10
- Publisher
- NPS Northeast Regional Office
- Units
- NER , PETE
- Keywords
- Civil War, Crater, Earthworks, Forest, Fort Stedman, relics, tall grass, Turf