SHIPWRECKS sometimes hold an enormous bounty of gold and historical artefacts. Early next year a robotic submarine will excavate the wreck of HMS Sussex, which sank off Gibraltar in 1694 (快猫短视频, 19 July, p 10). The ship carried gold coins that today could be worth 拢4 billion. I asked Bill Rammell, the Foreign Office minister responsible for maritime matters, when we can expect the UK to join with other countries and ban the commercial exploitation of historic shipwrecks.
Rammell replied that the government intends to monitor the archaeological techniques that the salvage company uses when it excavates the Sussex. It will ensure the project is in line with standards laid down in the UNESCO Convention on the Protection of the Underwater Cultural Heritage and a corresponding European convention.
Wrecks of historical, archaeological or artistic importance in UK territorial waters are covered by the Protection of Wrecks Act 1973. The National Heritage Act 2002 reflects the government鈥檚 concern for safeguarding Britain鈥檚 underwater cultural heritage. It extends the powers of English Heritage to assist and exercise administrative functions over ancient monuments on or under the seabed. However, the UK has an estimated 10,000 wrecks on the seabed and would be unable to extend legal protection to all of them, said the minister.
Advertisement
International maritime law covering wrecks is in a dire state. Of the 94 countries that voted for the UNESCO convention, Panama is the only one to have ratified it.
SIDNEY HOLT, a whale expert, recently wrote to 快猫短视频 (12 July, p 22) suggesting that the most urgent task of the International Whaling Commission鈥檚 new conservation committee is to examine Japan鈥檚 claim that whales should be culled because they damage fish stocks and contribute to a global decline of sea fisheries. I showed the letter to Ben Bradshaw, the fisheries and whaling minister.
Bradshaw replied that there is general disappointment with Japan鈥檚 unwillingness to discuss these arguments within the International Whaling Commission. A special scientific workshop was arranged for this purpose in June 2002, but Japan declined to participate. At the recent 55th annual meeting of the IWC in Berlin in June, its scientific committee reported on the results of the workshop, which concluded that despite recent advances there is no data and no model that could be recommended to provide reliable quantitative advice on the impact of cetaceans on fisheries.
The trouble is that the IWC conservation committee will have no powers to halt the Japanese research programme. Bradshaw says the UK will do all it can to rebut Japan鈥檚 nonsensical claims. Examination of the stomachs of thousands of whales killed in scientific whaling operations has failed to support its hypothesis. The largest take, in the Southern Ocean, produced no fish from over 6000 whales 鈥� which is hardly surprising, since southern hemisphere minkes feed exclusively on krill.
