CAMD’s museum collections total 75 million items (2021-22) with the majority representing the natural sciences i.e. geology and biology. These collections are fundamental to supporting research in the natural sciences and are increasingly being used to address challenges such as climate change, food security and emerging diseases. For example, the Australian Government became a signatory to the 15th Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity (COP15) to protect 30% of the planet for nature by 2030. Australia’s commitment is dependent on museums’ natural history collections to identify, validate, map and understand threats to, and opportunities for, biodiversity conservation. Around 80% of the biological collections are unique to Australia meaning they are an invaluable resource not only for Australia but for the world.

The diversity of the collection items held in CAMD museums goes well beyond the natural sciences and provides a foundation for research in the sciences and humanities and at the intersection between disciplines enhanced and supported by emerging technologies such as gene sequencing and Artificial Intelligence. This diversity in collection items extends to their purpose, size, shape, storage requirements, accessibility and documentation. Australian collections include substantial holdings across Australia’s First Nations culture and history, post-1788 social history, history of science and technology, dinosaurs, minerals and meteorites and range from extinct marsupials such as the thylacine to the iconic racehorse Phar Lap.

Many CAMD museums are engaged with a global approach to natural history museum collections as part of the Global Collection Group. However, while this work continues the challenges of funding new and existing collections remain. 

The 2020 report by the US National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine systematically explores the value of biological collections, the challenges to the preservation of such collections and the opportunities afforded by them. The Preface begins by noting, “Biological collections are a critical component of the scientific infrastructure in the United States and globally. They advance scientific discovery and innovation, enrich education, connect communities to nature and science, and preserve Earth’s biological heritage. Our nation’s natural history and living stock collections enable research to improve health, food security, and national defence. Biological collections are used to reveal the history of life on Earth, study the impacts of humans on biodiversity, advance biomedical research, and develop improved crops, biocontrol agents, and pharmaceuticals. Biological collections house living and preserved specimens that have a record of shedding light on the emergence and spread of pathogens and their hosts. Notably, the committee began working on this report before the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic started and finished it in the midst of the viral outbreak. Infectious diseases are a clear point at which living stock and natural history collections intersect in the service of society. COVID-19, for example, reminds us that pandemics and epidemics are not just ancient events, but under the right circumstances, new pathogens can emerge and cause great harm to modern societies. Biological collections provide the specimens needed to understand how infectious diseases emerge and how they might be mitigated before reaching the destructive level of the modern-day COVID-19 pandemic.” 

Parallel arguments can be prepared for the value of museum collections beyond the natural sciences collections to research in the humanities.