AIMA Conference in Geelong Marks 50 Years of Australian Underwater Heritage Protection

Representatives from the Australian Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water attended the Australasian Institute for Maritime Archaeology (AIMA) Conference in Geelong, Victoria, held from September 19 to 20. The event, held under the theme "For the Love of It," focused on the role of volunteers in safeguarding underwater cultural heritage and commemorated 50 years of national legal protections for submerged sites.

The department, which sponsored the conference through the Australian Underwater Cultural Heritage Program, sent staff to present on various subjects. Presentation topics included the involvement of recreational divers acting as underwater archaeologists and the historic shipwrecks located at Heard Island and Macquarie Island. The conference also served as a forum for attendees to discuss emerging technologies, best practices, and community engagement.

The gathering coincides with the 50th anniversary milestone of national legal protections for Australia's underwater cultural heritage. Australia established comprehensive national protections with the commencement of the Historic Shipwrecks Act in 1976, making it one of the earliest nations to institute blanket shipwreck protections at a federal level.

Those protections have since been expanded under the Underwater Cultural Heritage Act 2018 (UCH Act), which broadened coverage beyond shipwrecks to include sunken aircraft and other types of underwater heritage. According to the department, the current legislation now helps protect more than 8,000 shipwrecks and hundreds of thousands of underwater artefacts across Australian waters.

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