One of the strengths of the initiative of the Blue Shield is that although it is principally oriented toward the protection of cultural property in the event of armed conflict it does have an important role in mitigating and managing disasters …. I think that’s one of the aspects that makes it a truly international initiative and of universal appeal…. In moments of natural disaster the same need for cooperation exists and such cooperation results in the same benefits. – George McKenzie, Founder –  

OUR ANNIVERSARY  — What is the Blue Shield?
25 years ago, four international heritage organisations recognised the need for greater cooperation to protect cultural heritage at risk from conflict and disaster: the International Council on Archives (ICA), the International Council of Museums (ICOM), the International Council on Monuments and Sites (ICOMOS) and the International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions (IFLA). Together, on 6 June in 1996, they founded the
International Committee of the Blue Shield, with a vision for national committees across the world. Today simply called the Blue Shield, it is:
“committed to the protection of the world’s cultural property, and is concerned with the protection of cultural and natural heritage, tangible and intangible, in the event of armed conflict, natural- or human-made disaster.” (Articles of Association 2.1 2016)
Often referred to as the cultural equivalent of the Red Cross, the Blue Shield is a non-governmental, non-profit, international organisation, working to protect museums, galleries, monuments, archaeological sites, archives, libraries and audio-visual material, and significant natural areas, as well as intangible heritage. It is composed of national committees operating across the world, coordinated by an International Board. Members include the founding organisations, governments, emergency services, armed forces, academics, and all those with responsibility for heritage protection in crisis.
We found our work in key international frameworks and law, such as the Sustainable Development Goals, the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction, and in particular the 1954 Hague Convention for the Protection of Cultural Property in the Event of Armed Conflict, which designates our namesake – the distinctive blue shield emblem signifying cultural property protected in conflict. This landmark legislation was followed in 1999 by a Second Protocol, which recognises the Blue Shield as an official advisory body to the international Committee
for the Protection of Cultural Property in the Event of Armed Conflict (article 27.3).
This year we are celebrating our 25th anniversary. Blue Shield has 28 national committees and more beginning to be established. However, we are an almost entirely voluntary, including the National Committee members.  Blue Shield International is a largely unfunded organisation, supported primarily by Newcastle University in the UK. Despite that, we continue to grow. We have signed key agreements with the ICRC, NATO, and others, and are advocating for heritage protection at national and international levels.  As heritage continues to be threatened by crises around the world, the Blue Shield stands ready to assist.

Blue Shield Australia, established in 2005, is proud to be a long-standing ongoing National Committee of Blue Shield.  Thank you to all the volunteers who have contributed these past 25 years.

22 March 2021.

While the 2020/2021 disaster season again saw fires and cyclones, the current large-scale flooding affecting many more communities across eastern Australia is becoming critical.              A State of Emergency has been announced for New South Wales.  Disaster Declarations and Emergency Evacuation Orders are updated by SES NSW and Evacuation Centres have been established.  Other up-to-date information is available from Resilience NSW, including advice on donations.   Queensland Flood advice is provided by Queensland Fire and Emergency Services. If your gallery, library, archive, museum or local history site has been impacted by flooding, please contact Blue Shield Australia and your relevant BSA Member Association with your information.   Further news will be provided here in the coming days.

Flood Recovery Resources for those institutions and personal collections immediately impacted.

Disaster Planning Resources if you are not currently impacted.

Update – 4 April 2021 :   As the cleanup continues in communities across NSW there have been few impacts on GLAM sites directly.  A number of historical societies and monuments and sites were impacted and future assessments will be forthcoming.

During this Flood event in March 2021, Geoscience Australia and partner organisations put together a data hub with key location/geospatial datasets, including NSW flood footprints. The hub can be found at (https://nsw-flood-hub-emsina.hub.arcgis.com/)

With disasters occurring all around the world, Blue Shield International continues to support those most in need in the cultural sectors.

Karl Habsburg, President of the Blue Shield, has visited Beirut to support the work of Blue Shield Lebanon, the Directorate General of Antiquities and other partners in securing the museums, libraries, and historic buildings affected by the catastrophic explosion on Tuesday 4 August 2020. Blue Shield International is working hard to provide support for those working in the heritage sector, which has been deeply affected by the crisis. Blue Shield Lebanon and partners have been working round the clock to compile a preliminary assessment of the damage. https://theblueshield.org/bs-president-supports-beirut/

Flooding in Yemen during July and August 2020 is also causing significant damage to cultural sites and loss of life.

Further updates can be found on the Blue Shield International Website, Twitter and Facebook.  Follow these accounts for up-to-date news when it is available.

Authors:
T.L. Park
^{Southern Cross University and Blue Shield Australia, tanya_park@hotmail.com}
S. Hutley
^{Chair, Blue Shield Australia, info@blueshieldaustralia.org.au}

Recently 46,000 year old sites of high cultural significance have been destroyed by mining detonations.  Rio Tinto was legally permitted to destroy the culturally significant sites under a Section 18 Notice of the WA Aboriginal Heritage Act 1972, with a permit issued in 2013. Seven years later the mining company has destroyed significant artefacts including early evidence of grinding and bone technology and plaited hair approximately 4000 years old that has been linked by DNA to the contemporary Puutu Kunti Kurrama & Pinikura Traditional Owners.

Some 350 km north of this site is the Burrup Peninsula, with rock art which is amongst the most ancient rock art in the world. The  peninsula and surrounding Dampier Archipelago also hold the highest concentration of rock art in the world. “…petroglyphs, include depictions of human life figures, human faces and animals that no longer inhabited the region, including the Tasmanian tiger”¹

In January 2020, a submission was made to UNESCO to secure World Heritage Status for this region as Australia’s largest collection of rock art. If the submission is accepted it will reside on the tentative list for at least 12 months before the listing is formalised, due to a number of considerations that will be taken into account, such as outstanding universal value [OUV] of site, heritage management and including consultation with traditional owners [Murujuga]. The Burrup Peninsula is known to be a site of major industrial development and there are very real concerns that industrial emissions could adversely affect the stability and longevity of the rock art.

A number of academic studies have taken place around the protection of the significance of the rock art, one such study took place in 2013 pertaining to the natural processes and rates of weathering, erosion, including the effects of fire, that affect the stability of rock surfaces and subsequently the longevity of the rock art. Cosmogenic nuclides (or cosmogenic isotopes) were studied, and it was concluded that these rare nuclides demonstrate amongst the lowest erosion rates (at least measured by cosmogenic nuclides) anywhere in the world.  Thus low erosion rates, together with low rainfall, have favoured long-term preservation of petroglyphs, long enough to encompass the known period of human settlement in Australia.³

In 2013, after the mining company was granted mining rights in the region, archaeologists subsequently provided ‘evidence’ of the sites cultural significance via artifacts belonging to the Puutu Kunti Kurrama and Pinikura traditional owners, including a 28,000 year old tool fashioned from bone and a piece of 4000 year old plaited hair belt.  Traditional owners visited sites, in line with best practice in cultural management procedure, alongside international exemplar for heritage management, highlighting the importance of ethical partnerships with Traditional Owners and communities. The importance and significance of the site was indisputable, both from a local and international perspective.   Once the significance of the place had been established there was no process under the Act, or within the administration of the Act, that could alter the terms of the section 18 permit.  Under the AHA, no parties other than the Land Owner can appeal a section 18 decision. So, the Traditional Owners had no right of appeal after the section 18 was granted, despite having found new and compelling evidence about the significance of the site.

Legal Framework for management and protection lies within the Environmental Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999 (EPBC Act), where, within the act it is an offence to negatively impact an area that has national heritage listing. A great number of ancient Aboriginal sites are not listed as national heritage, and if federal legislation is not applicable, State laws apply.   The Juukan Rockshelters were not listed on the National Heritage List, so EPBC doesn’t apply. The rock shelters in the Pilbara were protected under Western Australia’s Aboriginal Heritage Act of 1972. The Traditional Owners are the Puutu Kunti Kurrama & Pinikura people and the legal tenement owners are Rio Tinto Iron Ore.⁴ So, under the S18 process, only Rio Tinto would be allowed to appeal against a decision.  The fifty year old act is currently being reviewed by the State Government, hopefully addressing the blatant omission of the opportunity of the reform of a decision once new information has emerged. Without legal protection cultural property is at risk as economic interests are at the forefront.

Instead of the circular debates in which the outcry of protection of cultural property comes at the cost of economic progress, Australia’s place within a global context will need to at least be acknowledged. “Global mining giant Rio Tinto is set to contribute 10m to support Covid-19 community initiatives in the US and Canada. The funding will be used to support deprived families and supply critical equipment to frontline works…”⁴  Australia no longer exists in economic isolation, we are on the international stage both economically and culturally, the destruction of irreplaceable cultural property is highly emotional, and deeply saddening. We all have to do better and find a way forward.  It is of no use to throw up our arms in despair, blanket blame, there must be open and honest conversations, difficult conversations.

1. Dineley, J., Australian Geographic, November 7, 2013
2. Brad Pillans and Keith Fifield, Science Direct Journal.
   Volume 69, 1 June 2013, Pages 98-106.
3. Jo Thomson, University of Western Australia, personal communication, 2020
4. Mining Technology, News, 5 May 2020, https://www.mining-technology.com/news

ATTACHMENTS: BSA_Press-Release_June-2020.pdf

Updated :  29 April 2020

Closed by COVID-19 – version 1.2 – 29Apr2020   Word Version

Closed by COVID-19 – version 1.2 – 29Apr2020  PDF Version

Blue Shield Australia and AICCM are pleased to release this Guide [now available as Version 1.2 as above] which has been produced to provide guidance for people who are responsible for closing collections of movable cultural heritage in collecting organisations such as archives, galleries, herbaria, historical societies, libraries and museums and at heritage sites. Whether working as volunteers or as paid staff, the aim is to preserve the collection for the long term, by achieving high standards in management of the collection and its environment. In uncertain times where things are happening so quickly, we hope that this guide and checklist will be useful.

AICCM Covid-19 Information and Links, including Disinfecting and Cleaning guides.

With thanks and acknowledgement to Mary Reid, Sarah Brown, Veronica Bullock and Margaret Birtley and with the support of the Australian Institute for the Conservation of Cultural Material (AICCM).

Closed by COVID-19? – A Practice Guide for Managers V1.1   – note new version above
PDF Version – Closed by COVID19 – ver 1.1 – 27Mar2020
DOC Version – Closed by COVID19 – ver 1.1 – 27Mar2020 

Information Awareness Month 2020 Launch Webinar
Date: 1st May 2020
Time: 11:00 AEST                  COST :  Free Registrations: https://www.trybooking.com/620874

Speakers:
David Fricker, Director General, National Archives of Australia
Elizabeth Tydd, NSW Information Commissioner
Kathryn Dan, Committee Member, Blue Shield Australia
Tim Graham, Senior Lecturer (Digital Media), Queensland University of Technology

This webinar will focus on the importance of the right information, how information can be derived, distributed, used (and misused) in critical situations (such as natural disaster, terror-attack, disease outbreak and similar) and what have we learned from the recent experiences.

During 2019 and 2020 Blue Shield Australia joined with GLAM Peak and other creative industry peak bodies as part of a Roundtable, to provide advocacy, communication and support through the Australian disaster season on behalf of the cultural sector, GLAMs (Galleries, Libraries, Archives, Museums) and the creative arts sectors.
Over the summer of 2019-2020, Australia experienced unprecedented bushfires, causing smoke-filled air, dust and ash, and extreme weather – high temperatures, strong winds, heavy rainfall with threats of flooding, as well as golf-ball sized hail.
Blue Shield Australia conducted a survey on behalf of the Roundtable during March and April 2020. Members of the Roundtable wanted to determine the impact of these extreme weather events on small and large organisations and to discover what assistance could be provided in the immediate aftermath of the events as well as in the months following.

We understand that many other GLAMs and heritage sites were affected (as summarised by our BSA News posts during January and February), and we also acknowledge the impact of Covid19 on organisations completing surveys at this time.   The survey report summarises the responses from the 32 respondents, it does give an insight into the impact on cultural heritage institutions from these events.

Blue Shield Australia acknowledges Sue McKerracher, CEO of ALIA, Alex Marsden, National Director of AMaGA and Natalie Fisher, Director, NSF Consulting for their work in co-ordinating the survey and writing and editing the survey report.

Survey Report: [pdf] Impact of Fire and Storm Events on GLAM Institutions in Australia 2020

As you may have read in the news, as a result of COVID-19, Australian Departments of Health are experiencing shortages of necessary protection equipment including masks and gloves for medical use.

While a number of GLAM institutions have small supplies of gloves, our national and state cultural institutions are currently liaising with their relevant Department to organise the transfer of these items.

This direct ‘institution-to-government’ response ensures swift collaboration which will be more efficient and effective than asking individual GLAM organisations to send supplies to a central point, with all the additional co-ordination and logistical issues which would then arise.

If the situation changes, we will put out a general call for supplies, but at this time we can concentrate on individual institutions’ responses to COVID-19 efforts.

Blue Shield Australia is working on a range of information and links for cultural heritage institutions at this time. Our Resources page will also be updated with relevant links.

Email Blue Shield Australia at info@blueshieldaustralia.org.au