Sustainable Heritage Tourism: Native American Preservation Recommendations at Arches, Canyonlands, and Hovenweep National Parks

Abstract

The sustainable use of Native American heritage places is viewed in this analysis as serving to preserve their traditional purposes and sustaining the cultural landscapes that give them heritage meaning. The research concerns the potential impacts of heritage tourism to selected Native American places at Arches National Park, Canyonlands National Park, and Hovenweep National Monument. The impacts of tourists on a heritage place must be understood as having both potential effects on the place itself and on an integrated cultural landscape. Impacts to one place potentially change other places. Their functions in a Native American landscape, and the integrity of the landscape itself. The analysis is based on 696 interviews with representatives from nine tribes and pueblos, who, in addition to defining the cultural meaning of places, officially made 349 heritage management recommendations. The U.S. National Park Service interprets Natives American resources and then brings millions of tourists to these through museums, brochures, outdoor displays, and ranger-guided tours. Native American ethnographic study participants argued that tourist education and regulation can increase the sustainability of Native American places in a park and can help protect related places beyond the park.