Ottawa - Canadian Association for Conservation

Risk-based Thinking About Sustainability of Collections
and of Conservation
R. Robert Waller, President and Senior Risk Analyst
Protect Heritage Corp., Ottawa, ON
The sustainability of the conservation profession is best pictured not as a goal but as a consequence
of success. This paper considers the risk to the conservation profession, focusing on preventive
conservation, and the application of more risk-based decision making approaches to preventive
conservation.
It is critical that the conservation field focuses effort clearly on our goal of preserving cultural
property, while making that cultural property more accessible, and not become overly distracted
in striving to reach a broad public. This is due to two fundamental issues: scale and uncertainty.
Regarding scale, the conservation profession is small, actually tiny, in comparison with other
professions. There are many benefits to being sensitive to, and striving to achieve, public education
regarding the importance and value of conservation. Still, it is not at all reasonable to expect that
we will be able to garner enough public awareness to make any significant difference in the viability
of the conservation profession. Even if our profession were 1,000 to 10,000 times larger than it
now is, relying on the direct education of the public as a primary means of improving the viability
of the profession would be ill-advised. The greater the degree of separation of our supporters from
our direct clients and employers, the more diluted their support is in its effectiveness. Not only is
support diluted, but it is also uncertain whether it would have the intended effect in supporting the
conservation profession as we know it.
These are both simple and unavoidable consequences of the scale and complexity of networks. While
it is emotionally appealing to think that massive public support could lead to a greater influence for
us in our daily work, it is most assuredly wishful thinking. At best it would distract us from what is
most important, working effectively both with allied professionals and for our clients, be they private
collectors, curators, managers, or whoever. Ultimately, it is our ability to work with those closest
to us that will determine how sustainable the field of conservation will become. They need to see
conservation as a unique and indispensable part of the mix in achieving their own professional goals.
In the area of preventive conservation, the skills and abilities that ought to be most highly valued and
are most uniquely associated with conservation are those that enable the effective management of
resources for managing risk to collections. These capabilities are greatly enhanced by adoption of a
properly-structured cultural property risk analysis model.