The past: what’s important? what’s not?

Want to have a say on the way heritage is presented in the Diggings Park? Have a go at doing the Parks Victoria survey. It only takes a few minutes, and your answers might tilt the balance of the way the park is presented.  You have until midnight this coming Wednesday November 30 to do it.

The questions are mainly straightforward—perhaps the crunch question is number 13: ‘Information signage in Castlemaine Diggings National Heritage Park currently focuses on its important mining heritage. Are there other themes, stories or aspects of the park that should also be told?’

As we’ve said before, one of the problems with the presentation of goldfields heritage is that it doesn’t give due weight to the environmental impact of mining. For that reason, perhaps a good response to question 13 might be something like this:

The problem is not that the focus is on mining heritage: the problem is that this heritage is presented with virtually no emphasis on the destructive effects of mining, even though these are staring us in the face in the form of the total destruction of almost all the waterways in the park: these eroded gullies, and hillsides stripped of soil, are also ‘heritage’.

…But it’s your say: have a go!