Uncultivated land was used to establish a Heritage Garden with endemic plants and to re-cultivate liquorice. Europe-wide trade in seeds and liquorice root once formed a significant part of the local economy. The plant was used for medical purposes and as a sweetener. However, liquorice root from Bamberg lost its competitiveness during the 1960s. Correspondingly, the knowledge about cultivating, harvesting and processing liquorice has diminished. The Liquorice Society is committed to the re-cultivation of the plant and tries to reconstruct methods of harvesting and processing. International competitiveness no longer plays a role today. The liquorice root is now a connoisseur product for tourists.

An interest group of 19 market gardeners was initiated by the World Heritage Office. It holds joint activities such as the annual ‘Day of Open Market Gardens’ and publishes buyer’s guides for local produce. This consortium of gardeners is coordinated by a caretaker financed by the National Investment Programme for World Heritage (2009-2013) and the gardeners, respectively. The consortium has its own logo, which was commissioned several years ago and reads ‘Gutes aus der Gärtnerstadt’ (Good produce from the Market Gardeners’ District).

While urban gardening is very much on vogue around the globe, Bamberg’s Market Gardeners’ District still stems from the Middle Ages and has not been abandoned to build residential properties like in Bath (UK) or Istanbul (Turkey). International researchers and tourists are attracted by this uniqueness alike. The local population on the other side take this fact as a given. The World Heritage Office intensively communicates national and international interest in Bamberg’s uniqueness to raise awareness for the protection of the local gardening tradition. Several documentaries about the Bamberg’s Market Gardeners’ District produced by the Bavarian State TV have strengthened the local identity and people’s pride in the gardening tradition. The international delegations that regularly visit Bamberg to experience the unique Market Gardeners’ District also contribute to the awareness concerning the value of this heritage.

In several families, the next generation has taken over the gardening business. Some of those young people even have a seat in the City Council to ensure that the interests of gardeners are heard in the political arena.

In Bamberg, every school child now visits the Market Gardeners’ District at least once to learn about food production on site.

In view of the heterogeneous ownership structure in the Market Gardeners’ District, the establishment of partnerships was time-consuming. Representatives from the Municipality and its subsidiaries (e.g. City Works for water supply) had to be brought to the table together with gardeners, land owners, associations (such as the Heritage Garden or the Licorice Society) and garden lovers. The municipality approached the corresponding stakeholders in writing, by phone and organized several meetings. Privacy concerns of residents had to be carefully addressed while finding adequate uses for uncultivated land. In one case, the building of trust recently even resulted in the conversion of an abandoned nursery into a community center, where cultural events, cooking classes and exhibitions are held.

Pimachiowin Aki First Nations and the Pimachiowin Aki Corporation developed a Guardians Program in 2016 to implement the strategic direction set out in approved management plans of ensuring community well-being, raising funds, supporting local economic development, creating opportunities for Elders and youth to work together, maintaining/enhancing our cultural tradition, and ensuring compliance with customary laws and policies. Capacity and skills have been built among community members in communication, record-keeping, survival, good health, use of GPS to collect and record geographic information. Guardians are community members that observe, record and report on the health of ecosystems and cultural sites, educate the public about how to be good stewards of the cultural landscape, work with provincial government land and resource managers, and conserve pictographs, petroforms, archaeological sites, cultural sites, and intangible values shaping Anishinaabe connections with the Site including oral traditions central to the expression and intergenerational transmission of Akiiwi-gikendamowining (land-based knowledge), customary laws, and geographical names.

The voices and perspectives of youth must be acknowledged as well as those of adults and Elders to ensure the whole community is part of the dialogue. Youth participated in the development of community-based land management plans and the Pimachiowin Aki nomination dossier. We will need the youth to understand and carry on this work after the Elders are gone. For this, presentations and dialogue sessions with Elders took place at community schools and youth forums. The communities carry out ongoing Elders and Youth Anishinaabe Language, Knowledge and Lands Teaching camps to ensure children and youth understand the importance of the land and continue to support this work in the future. These camps are held outside the communities, throughout the summer.

In parallel, Pimachiowin Aki Corporation held two regional women’s forums:  the Pimachiowin Aki Women’s Forum on January 18, 2017, and the Ikwewak Gikendasowinan on January 23, 2018 where Elders and young women participated in making recommendations to the Pimachiowin Aki partners which were included in the nomination dossier. Ongoing participation and leadership of women in governance is an important feature of the site management framework.

The Anishinaabe knowledge system carried and shared by the Elders has always led community life and land decisions. Through the First Nations Accord, land management and planning and the World Heritage nomination processes, the Pimachiowin Aki First Nations’ knowledge keepers began to work with scientists who were adding their system of knowledge to traditional area plans and the nomination. The only process for success was to set up a regular dialogue between both knowledge systems, and the engagement at the community level of Elders and other knowledge keepers, to ensure the community voice was heard and documented in the plans, the nomination dossier and in all communications, through community-based land working group meetings, meetings of the Pimachiowin Aki Corporation, and meetings of First Nations and government representatives on land management planning and plan implementation teams. The community knowledge keepers and scientists learned to understand each other. This was a long process and with mutual respect and patience, we were able to agree on the information provided in the documents. This process is still in place today, with the engagement of communities when Provincial Governments, Universities and organizations carry out research projects in Pimachiowin Aki.