Abstract

The key component in any resource management plain is to know something about the resource being managed. As part of the current integration of archaeology into forestry activities, archaeologists are being asked to create heritage management plans on huge tracts of land with often little or no baseline information. The first response is usually to fall back on analogy and to take plans from elsewhere and apply them to the study area. Often this is referred to as modeling although many attempts fall far short of the minimal definition of what constitutes a model. This paper discusses the need to develop minimal baseline knowledge of a region as a prerequisite of developing a heritage management plans. It goes further to suggest that it is both unscientific and unethical to develop plans without some level of baseline knowledge. Finally it discusses the components required for developing baseline knowledge of a region and ways these can be integrated into a developing resource management plan.