National heritage custodians and project collaborators

The National Museums and Monuments of Zimbabwe (NMMZ) are custodians of Zimbabwe’s heritage whose mission is to manage products and services that promote an understanding and appreciation of the country’s diverse heritage. Its heritage is managed and safeguarded by the National Museums and Monuments Act [Chapter 25:11]. Zimbabwe emphasises the important role of heritage as it is the only country in the world that has been named after a world heritage site, Great Zimbabwe. The country’s heritage management has a long history existing from the precolonial period where local communities would use myths and taboos to safeguard sites. From the early 19th century, this form of management was replaced following more academic management and conservation methods which have been continuously modified and upgraded.

The National Museum created five administrative regions with each region containing a major museum that serves as a regional headquarter for heritage administration purposes. Each museum contains various departments that specialise in the different fields of natural and cultural heritage (for example: archaeology, ethnography, geology, ornithology, palaeontology, arachnids, ontology, hepatology, entomology). These regional museums have more than four and half million objects and specimens that are of international standard. Additionally, there is an archaeological survey national database with a long history that can be traced from 1948.

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