Manifestation of Future Human (Culture) - Nature Relationship in The Context of Toba Lake, Indonesia

Abstract

The evolutions of human culture–nature relationships from histories demonstrate all changes in how people manage and perceive their land. In the past, the relationship between humans and nature was known to have high interdependency reflected by integrating people’s activities and behaviour towards nature. This integration can be seen through rituals, rules, and folktales, including awareness, responsibility, and respect between nature and humans. However, some influences gradually alter the relationship and nature by entering the Anthropocene era and industrialization, modernity, and globalization. Thus, it becomes divisible and changes the ways humans perceive and manage landscape (McHarg, 1992).

On the other hand, rich natural and cultural land, namely Toba Caldera Geopark, is facing shifts in its economic scheme: becoming the main priority in the tourism sector in Indonesia for national economic growth. Thus, it raises three main challenges that need to be addressed to achieve sustainable and inclusive tourism while also promoting socio-ecological resilience within local society. The first is about revealing nature capacity, continuity, and limit in order to address biophysical integration. The second is about unfolding the changing of human cultural identity that is presently (and in the past) becoming tourism assets and vulnerably to loss because of sharing culture, social well-being, and prosperity in order to promote social resiliency. And third is about determining the in-between systems that have a relatively huge influence on this nature-culture interrelationship and its evolution. Moreover, these challenges align with the existing master plan to give synergic feedback to present tourism development within the area.

Furthermore, the design explorations in this project aim to balance the present and future ecosystem services (provisioning, regulating, and cultural services) embedded in the landscape and local culture since the past. The understanding starts by theoretical formulation, including all elements that influence the evolution of human culture – nature relationship. Then, this theory is used from analysis to strategic design. Firstly, the deconstruction of the performative landscape from the past to present and its relation to culture. The deconstruction is classified into softscape and hardscape and tested in two different areas with different characteristics. Second, the re-construction of all interventions by proposing new schemes of strategic pathways by considering governance systems, uncertainties, collaborative management, and evaluation of existing masterplan. Lastly, projecting scheme of simulation by using a local perspective to grasp the limitation of this thesis which is site visiting.