Salvage should only be a condition of a CHMP when there is no other way (including preservation in situ) to minimise or prevent harm occurring to Aboriginal cultural heritage of particular cultural heritage significance, such as dense deposits of cultural material that includes temporal and contextual features. Salvage must be guided by clear reason and purpose. Salvage solely for the purpose of artefact collection is never an appropriate CHMP condition.
These Guidelines comply with sections 1(a); 42(1)(b)(ii); 61(a) and (b) of the Act.
Victoria’s Aboriginal cultural heritage protection and management regime prioritises harm avoidance and minimisation. In such a system, in situ conservation should be prioritised. Archaeological salvage should only ever be a last resort. Salvage is irreversibly destructive, time consuming, expensive and often not fit for purpose. It should not be considered routine and should only be acceptable in limited circumstances.
Despite this, currently salvage is routinely included as a CHMP condition. In addition, when salvage is a CHMP condition, it can be excessive.
Salvage harms Aboriginal cultural heritage often unnecessarily, and raises costs and delays to complete approved land use activities. These costs are passed on to end consumers.
It is best practice that salvage is only valid as a harm minimisation condition if the destruction of heritage is offset by the quality of information gained from that heritage before it is destroyed or removed. The gathering of information is the harm minimisation in this case. Despite this, salvage is often not providing adequate cultural heritage information about the heritage salvaged to justify its cost and time, or to justify its use as a harm minimisation strategy in satisfaction of section 61(b) of the Act.
These Guidelines aim to ensure salvage excavation is appropriate considering the objectives of the Act and the specific circumstances of an activity.
In situ conservation
Cultural heritage management is a balance between protecting heritage in place, and collecting and “rescuing” representative samples. Extremes of either should be avoided.
In situ conservation of Aboriginal cultural heritage should be the first consideration for CHMP conditions. This can most often be achieved through incorporating Aboriginal cultural heritage into project design, such as open spaces or adapting infrastructure to incorporate Aboriginal values. Where in situ conservation is inappropriate, impractical or impossible, and the significance of the Aboriginal cultural heritage warrants it, collection or salvage may then be considered. If heritage is widespread then a representative sample only – not the entire assemblage – should be collected.
Preserving Aboriginal cultural heritage without artefact collection
The cultural heritage significance of an Aboriginal place may be preserved and transmitted to future generations without preserving its material culture. This is done by incorporating information about that heritage into the development itself. This happens regularly in non-Indigenous heritage preservation. For example, new buildings may display plaques with photographs depicting past use of the site, or even incorporate past material culture into their construction. They may be named for past people, buildings or uses. The architectural form of a new building may reflect past historical values associated with that place. In these ways, the history of a place is preserved through transmitting its information and cultural values, rather than its material culture.
Examples also exist in Indigenous cultural heritage management. New suburbs can incorporate Aboriginal stories in park design and landscaping, local public art, street names, and interactive storytelling. The new West Gate Tunnel includes elements such as entrances and exhaust vents incorporating designs inspired by Aboriginal canoes and eel traps, transmitting knowledge about Aboriginal use of that area. The Level Crossing Removal Project is doing similar, such as at Karrum Karrum Bridge. In New South Wales, the Department of Planning incorporates a “Connecting with Country” framework that seeks to “support connection to Country in built environment projects in greater detail.” At the precinct scale, this means considering and reflecting connections between Aboriginal places, preserving and incorporating sight lines and travel routes.
There are ways to preserve the Aboriginal cultural heritage significance and values of places without collecting or salvaging all, or even most, of its physical remains.
Defining “salvage” and limiting its use
Salvage is an archaeological technique. Therefore, its appropriateness should be guided primarily by technical experts. RAPs must have input both into salvage justification and design, and can decide to accept or refuse expert advice about whether salvage is appropriate in each case.
When is salvage appropriate as a CHMP condition?
Salvage may be an appropriate CHMP condition in the following circumstances:
- When there is no other way (including preservation in situ) to minimise or prevent harm occurring to known significant Aboriginal heritage, such as dense deposits of cultural material that include temporal and contextual features, rare, or highly culturally significant examples of Aboriginal places in the context of a particular landscape.
- When complex assessment (excavation or subsurface testing) is impossible and/or impractical and it is likely, based on desktop, standard and/or related complex assessment results, that significant Aboriginal cultural heritage, such as dense deposits of cultural material that include temporal and contextual features, will be damaged or destroyed by development activity.
When is salvage NOT appropriate?
Salvage must never do more damage to Aboriginal cultural heritage than the proposed activity.
100 percent salvage for investigative or speculative reasons is never appropriate.
Salvage is NOT appropriate as a precautionary or exploratory measure. These are objectives of complex assessment – proper and considered archaeological test excavation, recovery and documentation. Salvage may be a recommendation resulting from complex assessment, where extending that complex assessment is not possible and/or practical, but it is not a substitute for it. In this way, salvage should rarely, if ever, be a condition arising from desktop or standard CHMPs.
Salvage is not appropriate as an artefact collection exercise.
Salvage is not a valid CHMP condition where only LDADs or isolated artefacts are discovered by a standard assessment. If the HA determines such places may represent more significant Aboriginal cultural heritage such as dense deposits of cultural material that include temporal and contextual features, then that is an exception which would warrant complex assessment at that stage, not post-CHMP salvage.
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