About PACE

Members of the Netherlands Association for Pacific Studies spoke at a seminar late 1999 of their fears that the Papua heritage in the Dutch ethnological museums would be lost due to government cuts in the funding of the museums.

A committee was established to examine whether Papua's heritage in the Netherlands was indeed "threatened", and whether - in time - parts of this heritage could be eligible for repatriation to Papua. The conclusion of the committee was that the threat to the present museum collection was negligible.

However, it also became clear that in Papua itself a lot of interest for the material existed, while local people themselves had no access to collections of some significance, and that the material in the Netherlands was itself in many ways was poorly accessible (especially audiovisual materials), divided as it was across various different locations.

The Dutch historical involvement in the former "Dutch New Guinea" has preserved an enormous wealth of objects, photographs, films and documents in various institutional settings. Access to this heritage could be an important contribution to the preservation of the many cultural identities that exist in Papua.

The committee recommended that materials from the various Dutch collections should in the long run be repatriated to Papua.

In the meantime an improved access to the material could be created through the Internet in both Papua and the Netherlands itself.

The foundation
PACE (the Dutch acronym for the Papua Heritage Foundation) stems from the work of this committee. They got support for its creation from an academic angle, through the Van Baal Institute in Leiden and the Center for Pacific and Asian Studies, Nijmegen, as well as from the Papua community in the Netherlands and from people who had in the past worked in New Guinea both in the Administration and the Protestant and Roman Catholic missions. Together they form a passionate, concerned group that is both rich in knowledge and experience relating to Papua.

The Dutch ethnological museums and related institutions quickly took an interest in the new initiative. Papua Heritage Foundation, PACE, was founded in September 2001 according to the suggestions made by the committee to further the conservation, management, and accessibility of the heritage and cultural history from Papua present in the Netherlands.