The last quarter century has been a particularly traumatic period for cultural heritage exposed to damage by armed conflicts and natural disasters. Armed conflicts can be international or internal in nature, often causing humanitarian casualties as well as damage to cultural heritage. The damage is often deliberate, as in looting of sites and collections or the destruction of cultural heritage as a part of ethnic strife. Bosnia, Kosovo, Afghanistan, Iraq, Georgia, Egypt – these are just a few of the countries which have seen damage done to their heritage in recent years. Natural disasters were even more numerous in this period and were often more deadly and destructive than armed conflicts.

Since 2005, the International Council of Museums Disaster Relief Task Force (ICOM DRTF) has monitored at least 27 natural disasters affecting cultural property (taken from unpublished email correspondence between ICOM-DRTF members.) These include the Indian Ocean tsunami, the Haiti...