[Nhcoll-l] drastic museum cuts at the National Museum of New Zealand

[Pedro A. Viegas]

Dear Debra

 These are awful news, having worked in NZ and with NZ natural history
collections I know first hand how important and unique these collections
are.

  Email sent, I hope many others join

Pedro A Viegas
Natural History Curator & Conservator

paleomail at gmail.com
+61 0 435 637 474

Follow me on Twitter <https://twitter.com/PedroAViegas> - @PedroAViegas

On Tue, Jul 24, 2018 at 11:14 PM, Debra Trock <dtrock at calacademy.org> wrote:

> Folks, this information originally came to me from a colleague in Canada.
> I don't have any further information:
>
>
>
> Despite many well-argued protests, the NZ government will not instruct the
> Board & CEO of the National Museum of NZ to maintain the existing staff who
> care for the national collections, although this is required by NZ
> Law.  The Minister of Culture & Heritage, *Grant Robertson*, who knows
> nothing about museums, is unable to grasp the basic idea that collection
> care, access & maintenance is an activity that requires specialist staff.
> It appears likely, although the museum is very secretive on the topic, that
> the 1.5 million natural history specimens plus about 0.2 million cultural
> items will be shifted from their current safe storage, which will be sold
> for profit, to a warehouse surrounded by volcanos, 500 miles to the north.
> Servicing of the 1.7 m objects+ is planned to be done by just 2 generalist
> staff.
> <https://maps.google.com/?q=190+Rupert+Avenue+/+Winnipeg+MB+%C2%A0++R3B+0N2&entry=gmail&source=g>
>
> Normal access will be impossible, a breach of the International Code on
> Zoological Nomenclature.
>
> None of the present museum managers or board members have had any direct
> experience in managing collections. The NZ government meanwhile deems this
> mass redundancy of 25 staff to be merely an ‘operational matter’. According
> to the Chairman of the Board, there is no shortage of funds. This is a
> change in direction by the museum towards being merely an entertainment
> centre.
>
> Final decisions will be made this week without any expert consultation.
> The accountancy firm, *PriceWaterhouse*, is providing “advice” to the
> museum.
>
>
>
> If you care about unique collections of seabirds as a research resource,
> please email Minister *Grant Robertson
> <Robertson%20%20robertson at ministers.govt.nz>* g.robertson at ministers.govt.n
> z  today, indicating that this is internationally unacceptable practice.
>
>
>
> This is the third major restructuring that the National Museum has
> suffered in recent years, each leading to many so-called ‘redundancies’,
> always in natural history.
>
> Attached is an article which appeared in NZ’s main newspaper on the topic
> today:
>
> https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=12094495
>
> Sadly it isn’t very strong, as the reporter who wrote it wasn’t
> well-informed.
>
> Staff at the museum are forbidden from speaking out publicly on the topic
> and their phones and email are constantly monitored.
>
> Fear prevents them from speaking out.
>
> Please send a SHORT email to Grant Robertson! Make sure you add your
> qualifications to any message. Please copy your message to me. Thank you.!
>
>  Contact me if you want more detailed information,
>
>  Sandy Bartle
>
> Curator of Birds Museum of NZ 1976-2009
>
> Sandy.bartle at inspire.net.nz
>
>
>
> Dr. Debra Trock
> *Director of Science Collections &*
> *Senior Collections Manager, Botany*
> California Academy of Sciences
> 55 Music Concourse Drive
> San Francisco, CA 94118
> dtrock at calacademy.org
> PH:  415-379-5363
>
> _______________________________________________
> Nhcoll-l mailing list
> Nhcoll-l at mailman.yale.edu
> https://mailman.yale.edu/mailman/listinfo/nhcoll-l
>
> _______________________________________________
> NHCOLL-L is brought to you by the Society for the Preservation of
> Natural History Collections (SPNHC), an international society whose
> mission is to improve the preservation, conservation and management of
> natural history collections to ensure their continuing value to
> society. See http://www.spnhc.org for membership information.
> Advertising on NH-COLL-L is inappropriate.
>
>
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://mailman.yale.edu/pipermail/nhcoll-l/attachments/20180726/13b8cdb3/attachment.html>