A Multicultural Landscape: National Parks and the Macedonian Experience

8. Conclusions from the Macedonian research

A history revealed A major achievement of this research was its revelation of a generally unrecognised history – a history still very much alive – involving parkland around Sydney. Admitting that this is but a taste of a much more elaborate story, the research to date still offers important insights on the ‘culture of nature’ among Macedonians now resident in Australia.

We have seen evidence of a world-view in which people and ‘the environment’ are inextricable. Testimony has been provided on the change of life in going from Macedonia, in which the rural village is dominant in both personal experience and cultural memory, to urban Australia and an industrialised working life.

Social bonding It can be surmised that one of the ways in which they survived this experience was to cling together as a community. Maintaining that cohesion was a way of ensuring some degree of continuity in a world where everything had changed. The research showed how parkland (national parks and other open spaces) played a unique role in consolidating the feeling of being Macedonian in Australia. Picnics and barbecues provided occasions where they could be together en masse. They could speak their language, drink their grappa, sing and dance without ridicule. They could enjoy their own food cooked according to the Australian barbecue tradition. Young people could meet, socialise and some would marry.

Paul Stephen related how the tradition, initiated by a group of Aegean Macedonians, offered a way of welcoming new arrivals. Clearly, the practice acquired its own momentum. It was still current when Violeta Brdaroska arrived in 1998 and was taken to the Audley picnic as a ‘rite of passage’.

Will the tradition endure? The sense of discomfort expressed by Violeta and her peers about the Audley picnic suggests that for university educated Macedonians and more recent immigrants, the tradition is less important – perhaps anachronistic. Times have changed, and the kinds of pleasure they seek in outdoor spaces are less group-orientated and more concerned with the particular aesthetics of the Australian bush.

This said, we have seen how the Macedonian landscape continues to influence, perhaps dominate, the younger people’s perception of the environment. The mountains and pine forests exert influence to the extent that sensory stimulus, the sense of smell, for instance, is mediated by cultural experience. While they feel themselves more Westernised, and have a certain distance on the ways of their parents, it is clearly apparent that they still value Macedonian customs and retain the language. They have all coupled with other Macedonians, arguing that the common culture gives them a common understanding in their relationships. Cohesion within the Macedonian community continues, at least to some extent.

It is difficult to tell whether the diffidence the younger focus group expressed towards the Audley picnic is representative of a wider trend. The pensioners group seem to think the tradition is waning. This said, a significant number of young people continue to participate on Christmas Day. It remains to be seen whether this tradition will continue to meet the needs of the coming generations, whether it will drop off, or whether it will evolve into something else.

Management implications The Macedonian picnics are community-organised events. They occur year after year, filling Royal National Park with vehicles on Christmas Day, presenting certain logistic difficulties. They take place in a manner which is largely indifferent to NPWS suggestions of car pooling and calls for order.

From a managerial point of view, the gatherings might seem rowdy and anarchic. This research shows, however, that they have great meaning for the people who participate. Initiatives taken by the NPWS Regional staff, such as the employment of a translator to help mediate conflict on the day, are to be applauded. Surely the responsibility of management is to ensure that the event occurs safely and that the environment and facilities are treated with respect. That said, respect is due on our part also: respect for a tradition that has endured in varying forms for half a century and which has a special place in the history of those who perpetuate it, since it has been instrumental in maintaining their cohesion as a community.

Certainly, the Macedonian tradition would have to be considered were any alterations or developments being planned for Audley. The picnics must be regarded as an integral part of the social heritage of the site. This should be reflected in heritage studies and listings.

Defining the role of national parks A critical finding emerging from this research is the vista it opens on the relationship between national parks and communities. The cross-cultural mirror does indeed tell us something about ourselves. Through one particular example (there would be countless others) we have seen how a ritual, unique to a particular park (though connected with other outdoor spaces), has been pivotal in the maintenance of community life.

At the end of Part 1 of this report I quoted an observation made by the historian, Peter Read, who suggested that:

The elevation of the undifferentiated and unlocalised bush to iconography made it correspondingly harder to save from destruction the local, the familiar, the specific, the lived-in, the un-unique and the un-universal.

This comment is pertinent to the NPWS because it reflects very tellingly on the way we have defined ourselves as an agency and how we have championed our role as protector of reserved land. Our self-perception involves the guardianship of flora, fauna, geological and coastal phenomena. Our entirely fitting role as protectors and conservators of natural ecology has eclipsed the social ecology of the many people whose lives are enriched through contact with national parks.

This is not to question the primacy of our role in nature conservation. It is simply to observe that the polarity between the natural and the social that Read identifies is ultimately unsustainable. Our public appeal, our community standing, our ability to justify funding from the public purse, can only be enhanced if the social values of the landscape – the ways in which reserved lands enhance community life and interpersonal understandings – also assume primacy. In that regard, the greatest challenge presented here concerns the way we define and present ourselves as an organisation.

A unique role in the community While a certain degree of public disgruntlement and dissatisfaction is part of daily life for those of us working in the NPWS, the data presented in this report gives cause for considerable optimism. As the researcher entrusted to carry out this project, I was frankly humbled by the generosity of the people whose experiences and testimony were shared so openly for this report. I wonder how many other government agencies would find a willingness on the part of strangers to share revelations about such personal matters as migrating to a new country, describing the minutiae of family gatherings? How often are public servants entrusted with the contents of personal photograph albums?

That people were voluntarily prepared to give their time to this project is an indication of the affection they feel for national parks and suggests to me a high level of trust for the personnel who care for them. It also indicates their desire to be consulted should anybody take the trouble to enquire. In this respect, the NPWS is uniquely privileged in being able to tap into the mood and experiences of communities.