Save our heritage!
Our heritage at risk Program 2007
Inaugural National Top Ten Our Heritage at Risk List Announced
During 2006 the National Trust developed the new enhanced and expanded Our heritage at Risk program in collaboration with respected heritage and media organisations.
Each of the State and Territory National Trusts announced its Our heritage at Risk list on world Heritage Day, 18 April 2007 and nominated two or three to the National Top Ten Our Heritage at Risk list. These twenty-five heritage places and collections, were reduced to a National Top Ten announced on 3rd November 2007
See press release for the National Top Ten for 2007
You can also see the State and Territory Our Heritage at Risk lists and the National Top Ten list on www.heritageatrisk.org.au
Nominations for 2008 are now being accepted.
This program is managed by the State and Territory National Trusts and coordinated by the ACNT in conjunction with heritage partners. The program was developed from the previous Endangered Places program.
Endangered Places
About the National Trust's Endangered Places Program and List
The National Trust's Endangered Places List was launched in 1998 as a reaction to concerns that heritage places remained threatened notwithstanding the existing legislative regimes throughout Australia.
This program has run for the last seven years. It has been the only national advocacy program of the National Trust Movement and is a collaborative program of the eight State and Territory Trusts, coordinated and managed by the Australian Council of National Trusts.
An audit of the fate of the 180 places listed to the Endangered Places program was conducted during 2005 and 2006. This list is being progressively entered onto the website www.heritageatrisk.org.au
Based loosely on the American program of the same name, the objective of Endangered Places has been to utilise the combined advocacy of the Trusts to focus community and media interest on the kinds of threats facing heritage places, and to marshal community action and government attention to address threats facing listed places and to achieve policy changes to address the issues raised by those threats.
It has had some notable successes in raising community awareness of heritage issues and some positive heritage conservation outcomes including Point Nepean and Point Cook, the Abbotsford Convent and Pentridge Gaol sites (Victoria), the Manly Quarantine Station and the historic Maritime Precinct (NSW), Sullivan’s Cove (Tasmania) and the Midland Railway Workshops (WA). Two places nominated as endangered, Recherche Bay in Tasmania, and the Burrup Peninsula in WA, have been nominated to or listed on the National Heritage List.
However, despite these successes, and the respect for the program held by prominent conservation and community organisations, Endangered Places has not reached all members of community and it has been difficult for the National Trust to ensure that all places nominated as endangered met the criteria for risk. In order to increase objectivity, credibility and capacity of the program to influence community and government attitudes, our new program Our heritage at risk www.heritageatrisk.org.au has been developed.
Previous lists and links to help conserve our heritage
Endangered Places Report Card for 2003
What can you do? Six Steps for Heritage Under Threat
Our heritage at Risk and Endangered Places Media Releases