What is underwater cultural heritage management?
Australian waters are home to many historic sunken aircraft and shipwrecks. These sites provide physical and significant evidence of our past. To ensure these sites along with other important Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander sites are protected, the Australian Government introduced in August 2018, the Underwater Cultural Heritage Act. This Act replaced the Historic Shipwrecks Act of 1976, to ensure our underwater cultural past is protected and appreciated by future generations. An advantage of the Underwater Cultural Heritage Act 2018, was that it gave the Australian states clarity on jurisdictional arrangements for protecting and managing Australia’s underwater heritage. Heritage NSW 2022, states that “maritime heritage relates to the history of human involvement with the ocean, coast and inland waterways” and the Underwater Cultural heritage Act 2018 is what protects those sites below the low watermark from intrusion and damage. The NSW waterways have had a significant impact on influencing its identity within its national contexts.
Australia is an island, which means its oceans are where humans came and went and interacted with its neighbours. The Australian coastlines and waters, provide physical and significant evidence of our past, especially through transport, communication and military use. It is therefore important that these sites are protected for future generations to study and enjoy. A way to protect these sites is through underwater cultural heritage management. Underwater cultural heritage can be classified as all the material evidence of human activities carried out in the maritime environment (Smith and Couper 2003; Soreide 2011). Cultural management is the development and maintenance of programs to protect, preserve and study cultural recourses. The birth of cultural heritage management is the consequence of heritage protection legislation and through legislation comes the protection of sites, site stabilisation, conservation management planning, arterfact conservation and the benefits of government agencies and public organisations working together to protect Australia’s maritime heritage (Stanforth and Nash 2006). Cultural resources are finite, and therefore should be properly managed to achieve maximum benefit for everyone now and into the future (Soreide 2011). At East Coast Heritage and Archaeology, we specialise in maritime archaeology and cultural management. Contact us today to find out more.
Smith, L., 1996, Significance concepts in Australian management archaeology. Tempus, 5:67-78.
Staniforth, M. and Nash, M., 2008. Maritime archaeology. New York: Springer.
