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Community awareness of heritage

This section examines issues related to what the community sees as matters of concern for their heritage.

Different members of the community engage with their heritage  in different ways and this needs to be understood and respected. Young people find their own ways of engaging with heritage, as do many ethnic groups. Heritage can make the past tangible and bring diverse people together to tell their stories. It is part of local and community identity and connects social groups. Sustainable tourism at cultural and natural heritage places may result from sharing these local stories and maintaining the authenticity of the historic environment and its knowledge and traditions.

All forms of media—print, visual arts, performing arts, television, radio and Internet—have built greater community appreciation of heritage as demonstrated by many programmes across Australia during the reporting period. Travelling exhibitions also highlight unknown aspects of heritage, such as the 2002 Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery's Creating a Gothic Paradise—Pugin at the Antipodes, which presented works of Pugin, the famous English designer of the Victorian Gothic Revival (Tasmania has one of the great collections of Victorian Gothic Revival, mostly churches and objects).

Media reporting of heritage issues concentrated mostly on local issues (related to conflicts often over development applications), and stories (related to historical anniversaries, descendants of those involved and associated commemorations). Media reporting of issues at the national, state and territory levels seems to result from top-down ministerial or agency press releases, with a possible follow-up with reporting of community response and action. This is probably balanced by the bottom-up reporting of local heritage issues through local newspapers and radio.

National Trust Heritage Week festivals in every state and territory continue to be the focus of peak publicity and openings of heritage places. Many other festivals feature local heritage as part of an established arts or promotion event. Commemoration of historic events raises awareness, such as that in 2001–03 for the bicentennial of Matthew Flinders circumnavigation of Australia, which touched many places and local communities as ‘ports of call'.

2004 was the Year of the Built Environment, and many agencies highlighted the adaptive re-use of heritage buildings with environmental, social and economic benefits. This theme appeared in guidelines publications and special issues of heritage magazines.

Community awareness is raised by networking places according to heritage themes, such as transport to tell a story, for example, the Cobb and Co Heritage Trail from Bathurst to Bourke, or the Great North Road (a convict trail in New South Wales), or the Goldfields Trail in Victoria. The Queensland Heritage Trails network was established to celebrate the centenary of Federation and, with other themed trails, are part of the heritage tourism strategies that some agencies have been promoting in conjunction with their State Tourism agencies.

Membership of peak heritage organizations remains at about the same level as in 2001. National Trust membership is some 72 200 members for all branches. They employ a volunteer work force of 7400 and manage 253 properties, some 170 of which are open to the public (PC 2005, p. xviii). The Federation of Australian Historical Societies  estimates the total number of societies at approximately 1000, with between 25 000 and 40 000 individual members, although the total population involved in community history activities could be as high as 100 000.

It has become customary across Australia since 2000 to open major festivals, conferences and cultural events with a ‘welcome to country' by the traditional owners of that place; and many meetings open with the chair acknowledging the traditional owners of the land on which the meeting is being held. This has contributed significantly to raising public awareness of the diverse number of Indigenous groups across Australia each with their own language and customs, which have given each locality a distinct identity. The phenomenal rise in popularity of Indigenous artwork has also led to public awareness of regional differences in styles and stories. Debates over attribution (intellectual property and moral rights) have increased awareness of traditional and gendered rights to tell stories of the Dreaming.

Market research in 2004–05 evaluated the Distinctively Australian advertising campaign, which introduced the new national heritage system. Quantitative testing found that 54 per cent of Australians are interested in finding out more about Australian heritage. Interest in natural places, events and stories is highest amongst the general public in comparison with cultural and Indigenous places, events and stories. Women are consistently more likely than men to be interested in all three heritage areas, while older people are more interested than younger people, and 71 per cent of Australians support the new National Heritage List.

The research found evidence of a deep interest in discussing, exploring, understanding and ‘creating' heritage in Australia and a desire among participants to ‘feel' connected to something larger. There were strong indications that the ‘stories' and the values communicated by, or associated with places (as well as places themselves) may be a powerful and productive way of exploring these ideas and issues. While the National Heritage List is seen as a useful legislative instrument by stakeholders, other means are required for facilitating a national conversation about heritage with the general public, old and young (Colmar Brunton Social Research 2005, p. 2).

The National Trust's Endangered Places List  was launched in 1998 as a reaction to concerns that heritage places remained threatened before they can be given statutory protection. While the list has no legal authority, it has been persuasive in making the relevant authorities respond to community concerns. The National Trust has also launched its Heritage Icons programmes—people's choice of familiar items of cultural heritage. In Queensland the 2004 choices included the backyard mango tree, Bundy rum, Mr Fourex (a beer label), goanna oil, the Royal Flying Doctor Service, Southern Cross windmills and ‘Hey' with a silent ‘H'. This broadening of heritage to include items and language relating to specific regions also supports a distinctively Australian approach.

The National Heritage Chairs and Officials, from Australia and New Zealand, commissioned research into community views and perceptions of a range of heritage values. Indirect benefits ranked more highly then direct use values and of the 2024 adults in the sample, 92 per cent agreed that ‘heritage is part of Australia's identity'. Heritage education for children, protection of heritage places, and recognising historic houses as part of area character and identity also ranked highly (The Allen Consulting Group 2005, pp. 26–7).

Trends are as follows:

• General awareness of the heritage of local places has increased.
• Community involvement continues in heritage festivals and cultural events.
• The non-Indigenous community knows little of the detailed Indigenous heritage of an area.
• Tourism is using local heritage and regional identity as both product and marketing in its promotions.

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