PA Environment Digest

Gov. Rendell inducted HeritagePA, a resource network for Pennsylvania’s officially designated state and national Heritage Areas, into the Keystone Society for Tourism.

The honor is the highest award granted by the Commonwealth for leaders in the tourism industry. Pennsylvania’s 12 heritage areas are a key component of the state’s tourism industry and are administered by the Department of Conservation and Natural Resources. (Photo: The HeritagePA Team)

The FY 2009-10 budget zeroed out funding for the Heritage Parks program and is proposed to be zeroed out again in FY 2010-11.

A visionary in destination leadership and community development, HeritagePA received the Enterprise Award recognizing the program as a champion of cooperative alliances that have spurred economic development through significant financial investment to anchor attractions across the state.

“These individuals are visionaries and inspirational leaders that are revitalizing the state’s communities while highlighting the tourism assets,” said Mickey Rowley, the Commonwealth’s deputy secretary for tourism. “Their efforts are essential to ensuring the Commonwealth remains the fifth most visited state in the nation.”

Established in 1989, the PA Heritage Parks Program, now known as HeritagePA, is a smartly built, multi-faceted regional strategy guided by five interrelated goals including economic development; partnerships; cultural conservation; recreation and open space; and education and interpretation.

Pennsylvania’s heritage regions are about the eras of steel and iron-making, coal mining, the oil boom, canal and railroad-building, the blazing of early roads and highways, and life on the frontier. They are about the influx of immigrants, the challenges and triumphs of a determined people, the birth of liberty and independence. They are about transforming a frontier and forging a nation into an industrial giant. They tell the stories of why Pennsylvania became the heart of America and the state that built a nation.

Understanding the power of heritage-based development, DCNR created the program as both a means and an end to enrich the quality of life in Pennsylvania by conserving and enhancing the Commonwealth’s resources and promoting its heritage for tourism development.

Heritage area managers from throughout the state were present to accept the award, a unique original work of art created by a member of Pennsylvania’s Artisan Trails Program.

Inductees are selected from nomination applications which are reviewed, ranked, and submitted for approval by the Pennsylvania Tourism Office in consultation with the Governor’s Tourism Partnership.

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