KATHMANDU: Australia’s ambassador to Nepal Felicity Volk urged for a deeper cooperation among countries, governments, and communities for the restitution of stolen heritage to places of origin. 

Volk made the statement at the National Conference on Restitution of Heritage held on May 26-27 with the support of the Australian Embassy. 

The Conference was held following the return of a 13th-century tympanum (tundal) from Australia to Ratneshwor temple in Patan during the official visit of Australia’s Assistant Foreign Minister, Tim Watts, in May 2023. 

Senior curator of Asian Art at the Art Gallery of New South Wales,

Melanie Eastburn, joined the conference, with funding from the Australian Government, to provide perspectives from Australia’s restitution experiences.

Addressing the conference, jointly hosted by the Department of Archaeology, Government of Nepal and the Nepal Heritage Recovery Campaign, Ambassador Volk called on all governments to adequately resource and fund those tasked with creating heritage inventories, identifying stolen artifacts and managing restitution processes.

“It is vital that governments support local communities to secure both existing and returned heritage properly,” she said. “I ask us all to invest in a culture of accountability and enforcement where it is neither acceptable nor possible for those outside and within social or official systems to misappropriate heritage items.”

Ambassador Volk welcomed the ‘Lalitpur Declaration’ by the National Conference on Heritage Recovery as a foundation for a planned international conference on restitution to be hosted in Nepal in early 2025. 

The Declaration calls on the Government of Nepal to “develop ‘heritage diplomacy’ as a key component of its international engagement and take a leadership role in the accelerating worldwide campaign for the return of heritage”.

“I believe Nepal is well placed to take forward these conversations and to shape global approaches. This reflects the country's role for thousands of years as the epicenter of tangible and intangible cultural heritage that has reached out into the region and beyond,” she added.

During the function, senior curator of Asian Art at the Art Gallery of New South Wales Eastburn spoke about her work on the return to Nepal of the Yakshi tundal in 2023, on a panel titled, “Lived Experiences of Repatriations: Return to the Community”.