BNPB: Cultural heritage requires disaster risk mitigation-based protection

Jakarta (ANTARA) - Indonesia’s National Disaster Management Agency (BNPB) emphasises the importance of transforming the management of cultural heritage in Indonesia from a reactive approach to one based on disaster risk mitigation to protect historical heritage from natural disaster threats.

Head of the BNPB Centre for Disaster Data, Information, and Communication, Abdul Muhari, stated in Jakarta on Wednesday that as a country rich in cultural heritage but located in a disaster-prone region, Indonesia needs to integrate the protection of historical sites into a sustainable disaster resilience system.

He referred to several historical records, such as the 2004 Aceh tsunami that destroyed more than 50 cultural sites, as well as the major floods in November 2025 that damaged dozens of sites in Sumatra.

In addition, the threat of tidal flooding in Semarang’s Old City, Central Java, continues to loom over colonial buildings that are more than a century old, and the 2006 Yogyakarta earthquake damaged the structures of Borobudur and Prambanan temples.

According to Abdul, cultural heritage should not only be protected physically but also utilised as a source of learning, as ancient manuscripts and artefacts often contain knowledge about past disaster patterns.

In efforts to strengthen this, BNPB proposes strategic steps starting from risk mapping based on spatial data through the InaRISK platform, structural building reinforcements, to enhancing community capacity around cultural heritage sites.

These proposals were also discussed at the seminar “Disaster-Resilient Sustainable Cultural Heritage” at the National Awakening Museum, Jakarta, on Tuesday (14/4), attended by Culture Minister Fadli Zon.

BNPB uses Japan’s experience after the 2011 Tohoku tsunami as a reference, where cross-sector collaboration and the build back better concept, or rebuilding with higher resilience standards, successfully saved cultural assets systematically.