"Our heritage is unique and precious and it cannot be renewed" reads part of the preamble to South Africa's heritage legislation, yet many public bodies don't know what resources are under their custodianship.
The South African Heritage Resources Agency (Sahra) now plans a national audit of state-owned heritage resources to help manage those collections.
"The audit is occurring for the first time in South Africa.
"It's a very important opportunity for us to ascertain what are those items under the State's custodianship," said Sahra's David Hart, manager of the national inventory.
The initial phase of the four-year, R29 million Department of Arts and Culture-funded project consists primarily of trying to determine what and how collections are being held in the approximately 2 000 identified potential State-funded entities.
These include government and local government offices, parastatals and museums.
"In many local authorities and government offices there is no single person or unit that manages movement of heritage items... Paintings, sculptures and movable objects are quite vulnerable. Potentially numerous items are at risk when they are not managed under museum-type curatorship," he said.
Eureka Barnard, manager for museums in the Western Cape, said even better-off provinces such as the Western Cape struggled with a lack of human and financial resources within the heritage sector.
"Particularly in the Western Cape, it is an issue because most - about 75 percent - of the country's tangible heritage, such as the built environment and buildings, is found here."
Barnard said those involved in the heritage sector needed to stand together and share resources and expertise. The country's cultural and natural heritage would otherwise suffer "major losses".
"We will have to find private partners as well, whether they are national or international. We won't be able to do this on our own," said Barnard.
Hart said the nascent national audit, under way for six months and informed by legislative requirements, was a long and complex project.
Among the priority sites identified for the heritage resource audit were Tuynhuys, parliament, and government residences at Bryntirion in Pretoria and at Groote Schuur in Cape Town, he said.
In order to ensure the project was sustainable, a central data base and information system was being developed to keep track of existent collections changing, becoming "de-accessioned" or lost.
Noting a number of items recently pilfered or lost to the nation, such as a solid gold tea set worth R3 million stolen from Parliament and melted down, Hart said the audit and emerging database would be ideal to track objects.
"We must promote best practices across all three spheres of government and ensure accountability for the management of heritage. We are concerned at the number of items that accidentally might slip between departments," he said.
Hart said heritage could act as a catalyst for tourism and economic activity, but care should be taken not to over-commercialise it.
"We've got an enormous history, going back millions of years."
He added that a multitude of voices must be heard in past and contemporary history so that heritage management did not become sectarian, an issue pertinently addressed by the National Heritage Resources Act.