As a department of the General Council of the Jura, the mission of the Conservation service is to protect, study and raise the profile of the Jura heritage. A communication and enrichment tool, its job is to transmit and translate what we have been here, what we are now and what we can be tomorrow.

 

The Conservation service coordinates a network of museums.  Some of them, owned by institutions and authorities, are officially designated "Musée de France"; others are managed by benevolent associations.This network also includes natural and paleontological sites such as the dinosaur tracks at Coisia.

 

Apart from internationally famous archaeological sites (the prehistoric lakeside raised dwellings at Chalain and Clairvaux or the Gallo-Roman sanctuary at Villards d’Héria), this network also includes several châteaux that very active associations have restored to life, often with the help of young people’s taskforces.

 

Finally, the abbeys of Gigny and Baume-les-Messieurs from which the founders of Cluny set out in 909, are part of the European Federation of Cluniac sites, recognised in 2006 as a «Major Cultural Route of the Council of Europe».