Dear Colleagues, The ICOM-CC Directory Board during its last meeting approved an activity project to be presented at the ICOM General Conference in Melbourne next year. The topic will deal with the tourism and the inadequacy of safeguards to ensure the preservation and conservation of diverse cultures and heritages. The sobject is very topical and should interest many of the ICOM International Committees as well as, we think, to be of particular concern to Australia. Over the past forty years the tourism industry has grown to such an extent that travel is no longer restricted to a wealthy elite and there are very few locations in the world which are not accessible to the tourist. This means that sites of archaeological or historic interest as well as the diversity of cultures and heritages are under far more serious threat than previously. ICOM-CC does not wish to deny to people the benefits which tourism indoubtedly offers, but it does see an urgent need for greater investiments and resources to protect against the negative effects of mass-tourism. The provisional heading for the ICOM-CC presentation is: "No sousteinable Tourism without Conservation Programmes". Under this topic ICOM-CC plans to organise in Melbourne different kinds of activity and between them a carousel slide show. The idea is to gather 40 slides (a carousel can hold up to 80 slides) representing specific examples of tourism-related problems. Each slide will be complemented with a second one containing relevant explanatory data. The carousel would run continuosly during the General Meeting. In order to realise this project we need slides of good quality and relevant to the topic: mass-tourism = serious threat to the heritage. We appeal through the ICOM distribution List to all ICOM members: if you have one or more slides which you think could be of use to our project, please send them to: Puccio Speroni National Museum of Denmark Conservation Department Postbox 260 DK-Brede, 2800 Lyngby Denmark Each slide should be accompanied by a note containing where [the country, the location, the name of the place (e.g. S. Peter Church, Amlet Castle), and when (approximatively) the photo was taken]. We also need to know the name of the photographer, if the photo has a copyright and the name of the beneficiary. We will achnowledge receipt of each photo. All original photo will be returned to the respective owners (we will make copies of the selected ones) in a maximum of six mounths time from to-day's data. We have to add that the ICOM-CC Directory Board reserves the right to select the photos. On behalf of the ICOM Conservation Committee, I thank in advance all those colleagues who would like to help us in such a project. Puccio Speroni Vice-Chair, ICOM Committee for Conservation E-mail: [log in to unmask]