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

[Debra Trock]

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.nz  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
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://mailman.yale.edu/pipermail/nhcoll-l/attachments/20180724/0a38bbbb/attachment.html>