Workshop on “the Minamata Convention on Mercury”

　We held a workshop on “the Minamata Convention on Mercury” at the Tokyo National Museum Lecture Room on June 9, 2015. The Convention stipulates comprehensive regulations to reduce the risks of mercury on human health and the environment, and was adopted and signed on October 10, 2013, at a diplomatic conference held in Kumamoto Prefecture. It includes limitations on the use of mercury as well as a ban on the manufacturing, import or export of mercury-added products, also having effects on cultural property conservation. Thus we discussed the contents of the Minamata Convention on Mercury and its impact with representatives from collaborative partners of the Center for Conservation Science and Restoration Techniques having a large variety of expertise, such as the Tokyo National Museum, the Kyoto National Museum, the Nara National Museum and the Nara National Research Institute for Cultural Properties, as well as Cultural Affairs Agency officials in charge of the matter and representatives from the agency’s fine arts division.
　As for cultural property materials and techniques using mercury, we agreed to carefully monitor the future direction of regulations in order to reduce negative effects as much as possible on the restoration and replication of cultural properties such as cinnabar as an electroplating technique or a drawing material and the replication of Daguerreotype　pictures. In addition, we also agreed to act to express opinions when necessary. Meanwhile, before the production of mercury lamps and fluorescent lamps is discontinued, we decided to exchange views on the use of LED lights and its beam quality evaluation. In the workshop, we could shed light on problems from various perspectives such as a natural history sample, academic sample and modern industrial devices using mercury and the disposal of waste soil at excavation sites, and we realized the very wide range of expertise.