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Hi Aldo- >(1). There are international guidelines (given by UNESCO) for the >concept of "cultural/natural heritage" on both sea and land. In >principle, everything *is* cultural/natural heritage unless >declared otherwise. And this goes beyond the interest of many of >those divers who "take a piece home" (ie. deny to others the very >same sites where they themslves liked to dive); That's the point - this document is too broad and open-ended. You constantly make the point that wreck divers deny others the chance to observe or learn when they "take a piece home." However, as I have learned in past archaeological investigations, much is "lost" during the process that could be gained by actually visiting a "closed" site. That privilege may be lost due to this blanket document should access be limited. For example, I have participated in the Monitor project for several years and I know that only a very, very, very small percentage of the information gets passed on to the public. So many cool things are seen and learned by actually being there on site. Look at the Monitor website; it hasn't been updated in years. Thousands of pictures have been taken, hours of underwater video recorded, hundreds of artifacts recovered, yet the amount the public learns about is trivial and sanitized. What is worse is the privatization of a public resource by archaeologists. One year on the Monitor, every image captured was the "property" of National Geographic because of an agreement with management. Sure, it was a trade-off for increased coverage in NG, but I couldn't even add pictures to my website if *I* had taken any during my dives with *my own* equipment that year! The same goes with the Hunley; they have armed guards at the facility and what is open to the public is severely restricted. If I were just a simple cyberdiver, I may be content with watching Discovery or National Geographic to see the occasional u/w archaeological segment. However, I actually dive and like to explore shipwrecks myself. I understand that certain wrecks (such as the Monitor) need protection. However, by applying the same amount of protection over every submerged object and limiting access, individuals (the public) will basically only learn the same 5-minute drill that they absorb in museums and in the media. Sure, you can read volumes of archaeological reports, but to personally visit a site -- or to be the first person to find and document a new site -- is much more impressive and the impact of such can not be estimated. >(3). Mixing up spear fishing and trawling is demagogy: spear >fishing is aimed at coastal species while trawling is done on >demersal or pelagic species at a minimum of 5 km off the shore. >The species are different. While trawling is known to collapse >fish populations so does spear fishing in coastal systems. First, please avoid falling into the hypocrisy pit. First, you recommend to Mr. Decker to wash his mouth out after you had the audacity to compare wreck diving to terrorism. Second, you also chastise Mr. Decker about his knowledge of fisheries science. While you may be a fine modeler, I recommend you brush up on many other areas and get familiar with how local fisheries operate. As I mentioned in another post to Matthias, trawling and dredging *does* occur in coastal and estuarine waters. If you would like to learn more about this, here is a well-received paper on the subject in regard to SE U.S. fisheries: A review of the fishing gear utilized within the Southeast Region and their potential impacts on essential fish habitat. NOAA Technical Memorandum NMFS-SEFSC-449, 62pp. You can download it at: http://caldera.sero.nmfs.gov/fishery/sfreport/report01.htm In this paper, every available paper that details fishing impacts (to habitat) was reviewed -- over 600 at the time. Now, we can continue to beat this issue to death, but I respectfully suggest we get back to diving. Regards, Mike _________________________________________________________________ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com/intl.asp -- Send mail for the `techdiver' mailing list to `techdiver@aquanaut.com'. Send subscribe/unsubscribe requests to `techdiver-request@aquanaut.com'.
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