After earthquakes and tsunamis in 2011 damaged museums in eastern Japan, over 23,000 natural history specimens were transferred to over 40 remote museums for restoration. Remote museums provided stable, safe environments for restoration work and engaged local volunteers. Specimens were stabilized, cleaned, dried, and repaired by experts sent to on-site museums or remote facilities. The network of natural history museums across Japan coordinated the large-scale salvage and restoration efforts. However, natural history collections lack formal legal protections in Japan, unlike cultural properties. Future legislation and cooperation between museum networks could improve disaster response.

1. Role of off-site museums for restoration - Experiences with salvage and restoration of
natural history collection damaged by earthquakes and subsequent tsunami in East
Japan, 2011, part II
Daisuke Sakuma1), Masahiro Ôhara2), Mahoro Suzuki3) and So Ishida1)
1) Osaka Museum of Natural History, Osaka, JAPAN
2) The Hokkaido University Museum, Sapporo, JAPAN
3) Iwate Prefectural Museum, Morioka, JAPAN
After the Earthquakes and subsequent tsunami on
March 11, 2011, we transferred 23,000 specimens
from damaged museums to more than 40 museums
and research institutions at remote-site all over
Japan. It is because restoration and stabilization
processing needs human resources and good
conditions for deliberate work.
The role of ON-site Museums
Background:
They had network of curators of the region.
They can coordinate the salvage and restoration activities
as local government’s cultural policy. So that they can work
with local authority, military forces, national agencies etc...
The role of REMOTE Museums
Background:
• Stable, safe and clean. Suitable for deliberate works.
• Local amateurs have high motivation, waiting for actions.
• We have curators networks in western Japan and Hokkaido.
• So, we could arranged entomologists to receive damaged
specimen of their specific taxon.
• Botanists exchanges specimens among museums, so it was
smooth to receive damaged specimen by parcel.
SENDAI
TOKYO
OSAKA
MORIOKA
TSUKUBA
(National Museum of Nature and Science)
Tsunam i suffe
r
ed ar ea
SAPPORO
Heavily shaken
& transportation/electricity
dam aged
Insect Specimens
240 boxes were salvaged.
135 boxes were transferred to 19 museums.
Vascular Plant Specimens
15,000 sheets were salvaged.
7,500 sheets were transferred to 29 museums.
Salvaged Specimens
Rikuzentakata City Museum
Rikuzentakata Sea & Shell Museum
The storage room below the slope in the Whale and Marine Science Museum
2,500 bottles of sea algae specimens in liquid preservative salvaged
The Whale &Sea Science Museum
As wide region of Eastern Japan, including Tokyo and
Tsukuba had shaken by earthquake in 3.11.2011, They had
traffic, electricity and fuel problem in the following weeks.
So, the salvage and restoration activities went to remote
museums. Iwate Prefectural Museum in Morioka also
damaged in earthquake, acted as on-site cultural heritage
rescue center in the Iwate region. Tohoku Univ. was the
another center for Miyagi region.
Practice:
• Salvage the museum specimen and
record the status.
• “Triage”, to determine which should be
treated first.
• Then send-out to safe sight for
stabilization process.
• Restoration of specimens which cannot
move to off-site because they are
fragile/ heavy.
• Stabilization with amateurs in Morioka.
• Stabilization as local workers’ job.
(especially in Rikuzentakata.)
Practice:
Plant collections:
• Transferred, then washed for
sterilization and desalting.
• Record and dried.
• Amateur scientists joined the activities
Insect collections:
• Washed with acetone, restored shapes,
record labels.
• For fragile specimen, we send
technicians to Iwate to restore.
Geological collections
• Send out team of geologists for re-
identify and restoration of the fossils,
rocks etc.
Mollusca shell collections
• Transferred small landsnail species,
and washed for sterilization
Geological Specimens
Experts gathered in Rikuzentakata City and worked.

2. Good points of restoration works in
REMOTE-Museums
• Risk hedge for secondary disaster.
• Load balance with on-site and off-site museums in hard time.
• Provide local amateurs chances of enrollment.
• Chance for skill up to treat damaged specimens
• Human resources for scientific analysis (which can be feed back to on-
site and future activities)
• Chance for promote museums and curators networks
2015, WestJapan-NHMuseum
Network joined National
“Cultural Heritage Disaster Risk
Mitigation Network”, to
prepare for disasters in future.
Natural History collections are not covered in “ Act on Protection of
Cultural Properties” nor any other National legislation systems in Japan.
Even in ”Museum Act”, there are no article for specimen conservation
duty.
History and Art museums are supported by the Cultural Agency, but no
supporting agencies for Natural History.
For the fast response of National government, some legislation should be
done.
But this time, activities went ahead to determine “de facto-standard”.
A
B
C
0
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
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A
B
C
Totally wet
Half wet
Partly wet
Example.1
Kumeda, Sakata, Takatori, Kigawa, Sato and Sakuma 2015
Fungal Deterioration of Tsunami-affected Plant Specimen in Great
East Japan Earthquake. Science for Conservation 54:75-82
(in Japanese with English summary)
Example.2
Mikanagi and Ozaki 2011 Reports from museum rescue. JCSM newsletter 41(5)
http://jcsm.jp/wp-content/uploads/news/PDF/vol41no5.pdf
Salinity and effect of wash-off
Many reports have published from off-site museums but mostly in Japanese.
“Stabilization Processing” is an official publication from Cultural heritage
network, written in Japanese and English (Including natural history collections).
Present situation of Rikuzentakata City
Museum
RTCM is now working in temporal
storage in mountainside, struggling with
shells and archeological remains for
stabilization.
Plant and insect collections are now
deposited in Iwate Prefectural Museum.
They also need to be monitored for
avoiding deterioration from salinity, and
for accessing the results of emergency
conservation treatments.
Role of Museum and curator networks
The western Japan network of natural history museums,
Curators’ network for entomology, Hokkaido curators’ network and others were quite
effective for knowledge exchange and coordination of activities.
We need to accelerate the cooperation between networks.
Exchange methodology with cultural
heritage conservator.
In Japan, Cultural heritage rescue team have
long history of their activities of restoration of
damaged cultural properties since 1995.
There are much deeper accumulation of
experience in their activities.
This presentation is supported JSPS fund 26350396
http://www.naturemuseum.net/blog/ http://www.nh-hokkaido.jp
http://ch-drm.nich.go.jp