‘Preserve and protect’ win for Eromanga Natural History Museum

December 9, 2021

The Outback Gondwana Foundation has secured $5,300 through the latest round of Community Heritage Grants, for a Preservation Needs Assessment of the Eromanga Natural History Museum Geoscience Collection.

Member for Marano David Littleproud said that 52 community organisations would share in $389,467 under this round of funding.

“The Foundation joins an ever-growing community of grant recipients who are caring for nationally significant heritage, including organisations that have received multiple grants as part of a staged process,” he said.

The Outback Gondwana Foundation will use its second grant to bring a trained conservator to the Eromanga Natural History Museum, where staff and volunteers work to uncover and preserve mega and micro fauna from one of Australia’s richest palaeontological sites.

“The Museum showcases the incredible diversity of Outback Australia’s natural history and visitors get to experience displays from the tiniest fossils the size of a sugar grain to the mightiest dinosaurs Australia has ever seen,” Mr Littleproud said.

The Community Heritage Grants program supports a wide range of organisations, particularly small, volunteer managed community groups, who otherwise would have no access to qualified heritage practitioners and very limited funding to appropriately care for their collections.

“From ancient titanosaur fossils at the Eromanga Natural History Museum to the Cowra Japanese Garden in central New South Wales; from the Her Place Women’s Museum in Melbourne to the Western Australia Cricket Association, community organisations across the country will receive help in this round, to care for nationally significant heritage collections.”

Since the Community Heritage Grants program began in 1994, more than 1500 projects have received grants totalling over $8 million, helping preserve significant Australian community history and heritage for future generations.

CHG is funded by the Australian Government through the Department of Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development and Communications (Office for the Arts); National Library of Australia; National Archives of Australia; National Film and Sound Archive and National Museum of Australia.