Our open access to the underwater world is under threat on the basis that divers/treasure hunters are destroying our underwater heritage. The photograph courtesy of Jason Brown is an illustration of what is really destroying our heritage, trawling, dredging and this is a supposedly protected site (Protection of Military Remains Act 1986). This aircraft site and a two hundred year old wreck nearby are covered in rope, wire and net, both of these sites are uncharted and were found by us using sidescan. You can’t be too hard on the fisherman if they didn’t know they were there, why don’t we put our efforts into locating sites at risk so we can protect them from destructive commercial operations such as fishing and dredging? Rather than talking about them and then restricting access even though we don’t know where they are. Ah problem, we would need the help and cooperation of amateur divers and amateur marine archaeologists, Catch 22 comes to mind.
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