Reposted from UNESCO

From 11 to 12 December 2018, legal experts convened in Monaco to discuss practical modalities on how globally unique marine areas beyond national jurisdiction could potentially receive protection through the 1972 World Heritage Convention. Experts highlighted that the lack of procedures to cover high seas areas might be a mere historic oversight and concluded that minor modifications within the framework of the Convention could allow such protection.

In 2011, an Independent Evaluation on the Implementation of the Global Strategy by the UNESCO External Auditor recommended the States Parties to the 1972 World Heritage Convention “to reflect upon appropriate means to preserve sites that correspond to conditions of Outstanding Universal Value which are not dependent on the sovereignty of States Parties”.

Following this recommendation, UNESCO and IUCN published a first report that identified an initial five locations of potential Outstanding Universal Value in the High Seas, including the Costa Rica Thermal Dome, The Lost City Hydrothermal Field, The White Shark Café, The Sargasso Sea, and The Atlantis Bank.

"It is difficult to imagine that the Convention’s founding fathers' and mothers' vision for protection was intended to exclude half of the planet", said Dr. Mechtild Rössler, Director of the UNESCO World Heritage Centre.

When the World Heritage Convention was adopted in 1972, international environmental and ocean legislation was at a very early stage. The United Nations Law of the Sea Convention (UNCLOS) would only be finalized 10 years later, in 1982. It was only when UNCLOS became adopted that the distinction between ocean spaces within and outside national jurisdiction became reality. The first hydrothermal vent systems were only discovered in the late 70’s while most of the deep ocean beyond national jurisdiction is still to be discovered by science.  

The meeting elaborated also on synergies and opportunities for collaboration in the context of the ongoing negotiations of the Intergovernmental Conference (IGC) on an international legally binding instrument under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) on the conservation and sustainable use of marine biodiversity of areas beyond national jurisdiction (BBNJ).

The meeting took place in Monte Carlo, Monaco, and was made possible thanks to the support from the French Agency for Biodiversity and the Prince Albert II of Monaco Foundation.

See Original Post

Reposted from Allied Universal

Now that the major holidays are upon us, take a few minutes to extend your safety culture. This is not only the time of year for special celebrations, it’s also prime for safeguarding your belongings and assets—especially those you’ve eagerly awaited as gifts or those you stowed away for that special loved one.

Therefore, it’s important that your employees, colleagues, family and friends are aware of their surroundings and always on alert when partaking in seasonal activities, whether they are shopping, attending a large public gathering, traveling abroad or staying close to home.

Safe practices at work carry over into the community, and safe practices in the community carry over into the workplace. Here are several ways to stay vigilante so this time of year remains a joyous one:

While Shopping:

• Park close to your destination, in a well-lit area and lock packages in the trunk, out of sight.

• Carry your purse close to your body and stow your wallet inside a zippered pocket.

• Report any suspicious activity or unattended packages to store/mall security or law enforcement.

At Your Workplace:

• Report all solicitors or suspicious persons to security immediately.

• Be suspicious of unfamiliar people claiming to be repair persons, as thieves are apt to disguise themselves.

• Make sure your receptionist and/or security team clears any workers or contractors before allowing them into your office.

At Home:

• Refresh your holiday lights; consider buying energy-efficient LED types that are cooler than conventional incandescent lights and heed indoor or outdoor use labels.

• Point any decorative outdoor laser light devices at your home and not towards the sky.

• Turn off lights or decorations before bedtime, or set automatic timers for six or eight-hour increments to conserve energy.

See Original Post

Reposted from Artnet

A protest at New York’s Whitney Museum of American Art saw the fire department called to the scene yesterday. The museum’s lobby was filled with smoke from demonstrators burning sage, a symbolic action meant to mirror the toxic tear gas used on November 25 against asylum seeks attempting to enter the US from Mexico.

The protest began at noon on Sunday and included speeches, chanting, and music. “Against the toxic clouds produced by Safariland, we burn sage. Smoke that protects and heals, smoke that remembers and honors, smoke that chokes the powerful but smells sweet to us as we assemble for freedom and dignity,” wrote Decolonize This Place in a statement prepared ahead of the action.

The protest is the most visible and public demonstration to date in an ongoing debate over the presence of Warren B. Kanders, the owner of the company Safariland, on the museum’s board. The flurry of discussion and criticism began on November 27, when an article on Hyperallergic publicized the ties between Kanders, the Whitney’s board vice chair, and Safariland, which manufactured the tear gas used by United States Customs and Border Protection officers on migrant mothers and children at the San Diego-Tijuana border. Kanders has served as Safariland’s board chairman since 1996 and owner since 2012.

The Sunday demonstration against Kanders’s continued presence on the institution’s board, led by the activist group Decolonize This Place, was held in conjunction with a coalition of other New York City groups. It is one of a growing number of protests drawing attention to unsavory sources of museum funding, from photographer Nan Goldin‘s campaign against museums that accept funding from the Sackler family to environmentalists’ demonstrations against museums funded by BP and other oil companies.

This wasn’t the only protest against Kanders targeting the Whitney this week, either. A second, unaffiliated protest action took place on Monday morning, led by artist Rafael Shimunov. Together with the group Art V War, he created a guerrilla-style installation of a painting based on a photo taken at the border last month of a mother and her two young children running from tear gas.

He labeled the work, Mother and her daughters in tear gas (2018) and credited “Whitney Vice Chair, Warren Kanders in collaboration with Trump” as the artist. The artist posted footage of himself installing the work and an accompanying label on a wall on the east side of the Whitney’s galleries earlier today. Shimunov has also launched a Color of Change petition calling for Kanders’s resignation.

The protesters noted that they were acting separately, but in solidarity with, the staff of the Whitney Museum. Around a week and a half ago, nearly 100 museum employees wrote a letter calling for Kanders to be removed from the board and for the museum to release a statement acknowledging the issue. (Kanders is also a “significant contributor” to the Whitney’s “Andy Warhol: From A to B and Back Again,” according to the exhibition credits.)

In addition to handmade posters carried by demonstrators, the Sunday protest also included imagery in the style of Warhol’s art and museum publicity materials, created by Decolonize This Place and the collective MTL+.

Mimicking the Pop art great’s multicolored screen prints, the artworks feature rows of tear gas canisters (instead of Campbell’s soup), and photographs of activists being gassed at Standing Rock and of Weinberg and Kanders smiling at a museum gala.

“The immediate goal is that Warren Kanders must go,” Marz Saffore, a member of Decolonize This Place, told Hyperallergic, adding that even if that happens, there are still “dozens and dozens of other issues within the board of trustees at the Whitney.”

Following the firefighters’ arrival, the protest moved outside and continued peacefully, with flyers explaining the situation being handed out to museum visitors and passersby. Banners reading “WHITNEY MUSEUM: NO SPACE FOR PROFITEER OF STATE VIOLENCE” amplified the message.

“Museum visitors seemed to be equally divided along lines of befuddled incomprehension and genuine curiosity about the protest,” said artist William Powhida, who participated in the demonstration. “I was approached a few times to answer peoples’ questions and it seemed to me that there is very little public awareness about who Warren B. Kanders is and what his company, Safariland, does.”

In response to the uproar last week, museum director Adam Weinberg issued a letter reiterating what he views as the museum’s role as a bastion of progressive art, a place for open discussion about difficult subjects, and a venue where underrepresented voices can be heard. In the letter, which did not mention Kanders by name, Weinberg also noted that “trustees do not hire staff, select exhibitions, organize programs or make acquisitions, and staff does not appoint or remove board members.”

Soon after, the embattled vice chair himself issued a statement noting that he had no control over how Safariland products were deployed. “I think it is clear that I am not the problem the authors of the letter seek to solve,” Kanders wrote.

Weinberg’s “tepid response to the staff letter” was a big reason Powhida decided to take part in the protest, he said. “The Whitney is one of the most visible contemporary arts museums in the country and I don’t think it should be used—as an institution that is seeking to represent diversity—to art wash or launder the reputation of Kanders,” he told artnet News in an email. “If an artist has a platform and an audience, I think we have a responsibility to amplify messages of groups like Decolonize This Place.”

It appears the group’s campaign is far from over. “We do not do one-offs,” Decolonize This Place told artnet News in a Facebook message. “But we are also waiting to hear how the Whitney will respond after our action, and whether they will remove Warren B. Kanders.”

As of press time, the Whitney had not responded to Artnet News’s request for comment.

See Original Post

Reposted from The Local (Fr)

Forty metro stations will be shut on Saturday and numerous museums and monuments won't be open to the public, but Paris City Hall insists tourists have nothing to fear.

Paris and other cities around France are braced for more yellow vest protests tomorrow.

Last Saturday's protests prompted the city to practically close down for the day with scores of cultural sites including the Eiffel Tower and the Louvre deciding to close fearing violence.

Sites that have confirmed they will be closed on Saturday include the Petit Palais, Musée d’Art Moderne, Musée Cernuschi, Catacombs and Théâtre des Champs Elysée.

The Arc de Triomphe and the Pantheon will also be closed.

Paris City Hall tried to ease the fears of any visitors but advised them to avoid certain areas and keep up to date with the news.

"This social protest movement represents no danger to visitors," a statement on the website said.

"It will however cause some inconvenience with the exceptional closing of certain museums and monuments, as well as that of some public transport stations.

"In anticipation of a new demonstration on Saturday 15 December, we recommend that you keep up to date with the situation via our Twitter account Paris Je T'aime, and that you stay outside the perimeter of the processions in order to avoid any uncomfortable situations."

Police have stated that from 6 am onward there will also be an exclusion zone in place around Place de la Concorde, the Champs Elysée, the Assemblée National, Place Beauvau and Hotêl Matignon.

So far the Louvre, Orangerie, Musée d’Orsay and Eiffel Tower have not said they will change their opening hours so should be open as normal tomorrow.

The Grand Palais will also be open, but only to visitors who have bought tickets in advance. 

The Palais Garnier and Opéra Bastille also plan to open, although Opéra de Paris advises anyone planning to visit to keep an eye on their Twitter feed for up to date news, and to double check transport routes as many stations around the capital will be closed. 

Tourists and residents looking to use the French capital’s underground on Saturday should expect some travel grief caused by both works on the line and temporary closures due to the ‘yellow vest’ protests expected to rock the Paris city centre again this Saturday According to the city's RATP transport network, 40 stations will remain closed.

Line 1 (Tuileries, Concorde, Champs-Elysees Clemenceau, Franklin D. Roosevelt, George V, Charles de Gaulle-Etoile, Argentine) and Line 9 (Franklin D. Roosevelt, Trocadero, Miromesnil, St. Philip du Roule ) will be particularly affected.

Other lines that can expect delays are Line 2 (Charles de Gaulle-Etoile), Line 6 (Charles de Gaulle Etoile, Kleber, Boissiere, Trocadero), Line 8 (Concorde, Madeleine), Line 12(Concorde, Assemblée Nationale, Madeleine), line 13 (Champs-Elysees Clemenceau, Miromesnil, St. Francis Xavier, Varenne, Invalides) and line 14 (Madeleine).

The RER C train line running from the northwest to the southeast of the city through the centre of Paris is also forecast to suffer closures (Invalides, Avenue Foch, Porte Maillot and Pont de l'Alma Charles de Gaulle Etoile RER) .

Buses are also best avoided the RATP warns, as routes are "likely to be deviated, limited or not run at all".

Most Vélib bike sharing stations across the city will also be closed, with the exception of the 18th, 19th and 20th arrondissements.

See Original Post

Reposted from Allied Universal

Business owners and managers have openly expressed concerns regarding property crime and physical damage to buildings and corporate campuses. Rightly so, as the 2017 Freedonia Report states that property crime accounted for 87 percent of all reported crimes in the U.S. in 2015. 

Graffiti, broken windows and doors, theft and property defacement are not only unsightly and a nuisance, but also create fear and unease in employees and visitors. Often times, areas with property crime also experience personal theft. 

Property and personal crimes can have a ripple effect, impacting neighboring businesses and buildings, inviting criminal activity, decreasing property value and business traffic, and having an overall impact on brand reputation.

Unfortunately, every business or public agency is vulnerable to property crime, but working with your security provider to implement the following three steps, you will be better prepared to protect your assets:

1. Identify weaknesses

• Is your business located in a high-crime area?

• Are neighboring businesses having similar issues?

• Does your business or building take part in controversial issues?

• Does your business have a variety of guests/employees?

• Do you lack physical barriers?

2. Implement solutions

• Increase security patrols.

• Update lighting, barriers and landscaping.

• Integrate your physical security presence with technology solutions.

• Utilize access control measures.

3. Execute response

• Develop preventive measures for deterring vandals and thieves.

• Involve the community and neighboring businesses in your planning.

• Promptly communicate issues to law enforcement.

• Track crime trends.

Make the commitment to prevent property crime before your business is adversely impacted. Above and beyond the occasional graffiti and petty theft, these criminal activity can escalate quickly and impact the entire community. 

See Original Post

Reposted from Allied Universal

In less than four months, a multitude of fans, tourists and media will descend upon Atlanta for Super Bowl LIII. Whether your event is a major sports event or a Fortune 500 meeting, your business, wherever it is located, needs to be prepared with the right security measures and staff to go the distance to your goal line!  By employing the best security practices, you’ll ensure the safety of your guests and staff and prevent damage to the venue. 

• Know the Venue and Venue Security Personnel – Every venue requires a specific on-site strategy. What are the entry and exit points? In the event of an evacuation, how would you direct the crowd to avoid panic stampeding and trampling? A contracted, private event security firm should establish a great working relationship with the in-house security team who are the true experts of this venue. Contract security should be in continual touch with the in-house team via their preferred communication method before and during the event.    
• Communication is Key – The client manager should be communicating with the in-house security team weeks or months ahead of the special event so that client expectations are aligned. What kind of uniforms should event security wear? How often does the client want to hear from security when a problem arises? 
• Train Staff – It’s important to identify and train staffers as quickly as possible. Schedule a familiarization site walk so that they can surveil the facility layout. Additionally, it’s smart to over staff so if there is an issue, you can call in personnel who are familiar with the venue and don’t need a lot of transition time.
• Show Time – Prior to the day of the event, all of the logistics should have been orchestrated.  Management will have reviewed post orders with the security officers, the staff is trained and all emergency planning has been finalized. 

Also, event security needs to work closely with the local police department because every event experience is unique and it’s important to establish priorities for a variety of emergency scenarios.

See Original Post

Reposted from Hyperallergic

On the morning of Friday, November 30, a group of community members gathered at the RISD Museum to pressure the institution to carry out measures to decolonize by restituting stolen artifacts. The demonstration was led by students, faculty, and staff from Brown University and the Rhode Island School of Design (RISD), as well as members of the local community.

The group flooded the front entrance of the museum and announced their call to action, leading with the chant, “Heads up, RISD!” Demonstrators distributed letterpress posters which read, “Heads Up RISD. Decolonization, or Complicity? RISD, you have a decision to make.” The poster also featured an image of the main object in question at today’s demonstration: a bronze sculpture from the Kingdom of Benin.

The RISD Museum’s possession of this artifact, one of the thousands that have been displaced all over the world, can be traced back directly to violent colonial conquest. During the Punitive Expedition of 1897, British colonists captured and plundered Benin City. They looted and relocated its artworks to Britain, and quickly traded these artifacts to Western markets. Restitution of Benin bronzes has been highlighted in recent global news, most notably by the Bénédicte Savoy and Felwine Sarr report which was released earlier this year. Just last week, the French government agreed to begin a process of complete restitution of artifacts stolen from the African continent. The RISD Museum’s possession of this Benin bronze, brought demonstrators in Providence, Rhode Island today, to call for the same action.

Virginia Thomas, a PhD candidate at Brown, introduced the action with an acknowledgement that the State of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations (the state’s official name) is home to RISD, an institution which occupies Mosshassuck land (shared by Nahaganset, Pokanoket, Nipmuc, and Peqout tribal nations) and that the RISD Museum “must account for the ways in which the institution, and we as community members, continue to benefit from the dispossession of Mosshassuck from Indigenous peoples.”

She further announced this assembly as a call-in for the museum to decolonize without delay, and addressed the intersections at which decolonization would take place: “It is with this anti-imperialist orientation and alignment with struggles for Indigenous lands and objects, Black liberation, and a free Palestine that we desire for the RISD Museum to hear our call to disown the Benin bronze from its collections.”

The Museum told Hyperallergic in an email following today’s action:

“The RISD Museum recognizes the looted status of the Head of a King (Oba) made by Benin royal artists in West Africa which was given to the collection in 1939. British forces sacked the Benin kingdom in 1897 in a campaign known as the Benin Punitive Expedition. Cities were burned; the reigning king, Oba Ovonranwmen, was forced into exile; and works of art and other treasures were looted. Soon after, museums and individuals throughout Europe and the United States were collecting Benin bronzes. We have initiated a process of communication with Oba Ewuare II and the National Commission for Museums and Monuments in Nigeria which has been established to address this very issue. We see this as an opportunity to confront the histories of colonialism that exist within museum collections.”

While the museum administration is working toward decolonization, the constituency has felt disconnected from the process and was unaware of the updates before today’s action.

Ariella Azoulay, professor of Comparative Literature and Modern Culture and Media at Brown, was one of the several speakers at today’s demonstration. She recognized the problem at an institutional level and called on individuals with ties to the RISD Museum to support the cause for restitution:

“The Sarr & Savoy report empowers us in this demand to disown these objects … in the process of undoing colonial geographies and violence … [The report] is the proof that museum workers have the right and are capable of not incorporating, as their own, the voice of the institutions in which they work. They also have the power to leave behind and detach themselves from the institutional persona that they inhabit. The report … is the ultimate proof that those who work in museums can introduce a distance between themselves and a voice of the institution. We are here to remind museum workers that while speaking the voice of the institution, they continue to perpetuate its imperial violence.”

“Stolen land, stolen people, stolen art,” proclaimed a chant led by a postdoctoral scholar at Brown, Christopher, who requested his last name be omitted. Christopher notes that they are not the first to do this, they are just lending their voices to the movement. We are “doing our part to push forward our practices of accountability,” he says.

Individuals in the group took turns reading aloud their collective message. They make it clear that they “are not acting as the messenger of existing restitution claims,” and that they are acting “in solidarity with the communities who claim [restitution] by calling for a decolonial approach that goes to the root of the museum’s institutional culture.” Repeating the individual speakers before them, the group demands the museum to willingly “embrace new modes of accountability” and that “RISD respect[s] and respond[s] to these claims with no delay.” A list of demands was also announced. They can be found online.

After the speakers were finished, the group called in the audience to join them in delivering a letter to John Smith, the museum director. They chanted, “Heads up, RISD” as they marched through the modern wing of the museum and to the narrow hallway where the administrative offices are located. After the letter was received, RISD administration told the demonstrators that they have already begun the restitution process and have communicated with the Nigerian government. The RISD Museum will report back in a couple of weeks.

See Original Post

Reposted from The Art Newspaper

The process of art attribution has recently come under attack from all sides. Forgery scandals seem to be rampant. Just months after a German court convicted Wolfgang Beltracchi for faking the work of such artists as Heinrich Campendonk, Max Ernst and Max Pechstein, one of America’s oldest galleries, Knoedler, ceased operations due to allegations that it had sold paintings falsely attributed to some of the leading Abstract Expressionists. This past January, a Modigliani exhibition at the Palazzo Ducale in Genoa was forced to close early when it was revealed that nearly all the works were fakes. At the same time, fear of litigation has caused foundations representing Jean-Michel Basquiat, Alexander Calder, Keith Haring, Lee Krasner, Roy Lichtenstein, Jackson Pollock and Andy Warhol to dissolve their authentication boards. Just when we need them most, art experts find themselves increasingly on the defensive.

However, the apparent authentication crisis is not nearly so widespread as the aforementioned widely publicized cases might lead one to believe. Most forgeries enter the market at the bottom of the food chain: through flea markets, thrift shops and internet sites like eBay. These low-cost fakes are usually identified before they can enter the high-end art market. Very few forgers have the talent to create original compositions similar enough in style to a famous artist that they fool even moderately informed people, let alone experts.

However, as the Beltrachi and Knoedler cases demonstrate, the stakes can be enormous when a forger manages to breach the art world’s established defenses. The conservation scientist James Martin, who unmasked the Knoedler fakes by proving the paintings were created with anachronistic, atypical materials, likes to compare the authentication process to a three-legged stool of connoisseurship, technical analysis and provenance. As works are systematically examined and cataloged, the stylistic nuances of individual artists become clear, and patterns of ownership also make themselves known.

While helpful in addition to the physical evidence presented by a work of art, provenance alone is not sufficient to authenticate a work as histories are readily fabricated, and many prominent collectors have owned fakes. Similarly, the identification of pigments unknown during an artist’s lifetime may be used to expose a forgery but the presence of historically appropriate materials does not necessarily prove authenticity. While scientific testing and provenance are important, connoisseurship is the glue that binds everything together.

Art authentication is not, and probably never will be, an exact science. This does not mean that the experts who make such judgments are incompetent or capricious. Nevertheless, we live in a world of “alternative facts”, in which everyone’s opinion is deemed equally valid, and anyone can find an “authority” to say whatever he or she wants. The current authentication crisis arises from a confluence of populist anger at the very notion of expertise, the inherent subjectivity of the authentication process, and dizzying art prices.

See Original Post

Reposted from the Natural History Museum 

In times of war, the Museum defiantly stayed open for as long as it could, its grounds were converted to community allotments and resident scientists put their minds to keeping troops and allies alive on foreign soil.

During the Second World War a number of the Museum's galleries were commandeered to provide tools and training for British secret spy networks. 

Home front

The Museum remained open to the public throughout the First World War, sharing knowledge to help the home front. Displays were created covering gardening, pest control and foraging.

As food shortages took their toll, carrier pigeons relaying military communications and life-saving messages from downed pilots sometimes ended up shot for pigeon pie.  

A display of types of pigeons was created to help those at home tell the difference between ordinary wood pigeons, rock doves, stock doves and their carrier pigeon cousins

In 1910 the Museum received a request from the War Office. A batch of army biscuits - a staple of the military diet - which had been sent to troops in South Africa and Mauritius had been infested with moths and become inedible despite being transported in hermetically sealed jars.

John Hartley Durrant of the Zoology department was asked to investigate. He concluded that eggs must have been laid at some point between baking and packing the biscuits, with larvae developing later inside the sealed tins

War horses

During the First World War, British forces used over one million horses and mules to pull heavy machinery, carry supplies and provide transport.

This proved essential for the war effort. In 1914, Lieutenant Colonel E Lloyd Williams of the 2nd London Division applied for permission for his men to visit the Museum and study the anatomy of horse specimens on display. Today, visitors can still see one of these specimens in the Mammals gallery.

Spies in the Museum

A British spy network called the Special Operations Executive (SOE) was formed in 1940 as a secret service under the aegis of the Minister of Economic Warfare.

Under the cover name Inter-Services Research Bureau, its mission was 'to aid and encourage all resistance to the enemy in occupied territories'.

Unbeknown to the public, the SOE sealed off several galleries to create a workshop and top secret demonstration room. Plasterers and carpenters prepared materials for agents in the field in a workshop at the north end of what is now the Jerwood Gallery.

James Bond-style hardware created in the SEO workshop included innocuous-looking carvings cast in high explosive, coloured to look like wood, sandstone and porcelain and designed to be detonated by time delay. The War Office created catalogues of such devices explaining that local agents on the Eastern Front would pose as quayside hawkers and sell carvings to embarking Japanese troops. 

One of the most curious weapons offered to agents in the catalogue of special devices and supplies was an exploding rat - literally, a rat skin filled with explosives.

War damage

Between September 1940 and April 1941 the Museum was hit by a number of bad air raids as the Luftwaffe targeted London, which then resumed in 1944 with the deployment of 'Doodlebugs' (V-1 flying bombs). These raids resulted in major damage to many parts of the Museum.

See Original Post and see fantastic photographs!

IFCPP held its 19^th Annual Conference, Seminar, & Exhibits October 13-17^th in beautiful San Simeon, California. Rob and Steve Layne and their extraordinary staff provided fun activities outside of the conference schedule, including wine tasting at the Heart Ranch Winery and Paso Robles vineyards, networking meals, a paint party at the Cambria Pine Lodge, and tours of the Hearst Castle in San Simeon.   The pre-conference program focused on library security and included discussions of how best to protect libraries from theft and vandalism, creating marks of ownership for special collections materials, effects of fire extinguishing agents on library and archive collections, state laws regarding ejecting disruptive patrons, and balancing access and security in library special collections. The conference program was equally rich in content: drones as an emerging threat vector, fine art insurance, Detroit Institute of Art case study in emergency planning, fire suppression systems for cultural properties, security system monitoring and evaluation, customer service, conflict resolution, collaborative collection protection, role of security in slip and fall accidents, and special event security considerations.

The highlight of the conference was the vulnerability assessment exercise performed at the Hearst Castle. District Superintendent for the California State Parks San Luis Obispo District James Grennan, our conference host, assigned attendees to four groups that would explore four of the site’s essential functions: security, fire safety, collections, and IT. Each group spent about 20 minutes with senior Hearst Castle staff who walked each group through the grounds, castle, and houses, as well as some behind-the-scenes such as the Security Command Center, the fire station, and the collections preparation and storage area. Each staff member also discussed their daily routines, concerns, and visions for improving all operational aspects. Attendees met the next day to perform a “hot wash,” led by Mr. Grennan, who discussed the feasibility of several suggestions that were offered. Such exercises are a boon to both conference attendees as well as the host because, a) they are a great way to explore how different cultural properties deploy security, fire, and emergency management best practices, b) they provide a forum to discuss how to improve existing security programs, and c) the host gets to have a fresh set of eyes review its security program.

The IFCPP is currently planning where to celebrate its 20^th conference. This excellent program is unique because it focuses solely on cultural property protection and attendees all work for or with cultural properties, which makes for engaging conversation and networking.

Robert Carotenuto, CIPM, CPP, PCI, PSP,
AVP, Security
The New York Botanical Garden