Editors note -

A recent BBC broadcast addressed the newly ratified UNESCO Convention on Underwater Cultural Heritage. The debate over its effectiveness as well as its over regulatory procedures still persist between government officials and private historic salvors. Lyndel Prott, UNESCO's Director of Cultural Heritage and IMAC's publisher, Pat Clyne were asked to debate the issues live on this BBC network presentation.

To begin the show, the BBC moderator, Fredrick Love, first talked with archaeologist Dr. Carlos Fitzgerald who is now working in Panama on what might conceivably be one of Columbus's lost ships.

The show began with a music lead in:

Mod: That was music from "1492" a film about the historic voyages of Christopher Columbus, sailing around uncharted seas in the New World. He lost several ships, and archaeologists are now very excited that the wreck of one of these, the Vizcaina, may have been found near Nombre de Dios, a small settlement near the Panamanian town of Portobelo. Dr. Carlos Fitzgerald is director of Panama's National Heritage office.

CF: It's in very shallow water. It's about 20 feet underwater in a reef a couple of hundred meters from the coast. So it's very accessible. We know that Christopher Columbus left two ships in Panama. One, La Gallega, it's well known that it's on the Belen River and than Columbus said that he abandoned the other ship near Portobelo and Nombre de Dios, of course, is near Portobelo. The first artifacts that came to life are these very early guns that have two openings like two mouths and they look like medieval. They use stone balls instead of metal balls as projectiles and they are all ringed, so it appears that the weapons are early, probably from the early conquest times from the early part of the 16th century but we have no conclusive evidence, I must express that.

MOD: But clearly there are very important artifacts to be found in and around this wreck. Now how are you going about protecting it?

CF: Well we have the help of our Maritime service what goes for a Navy here in Panama, they are protecting the site. And of course it is very difficult to work there right now because the seas are rough. Come summer, come the dry season, we will have to have continuous coverage by the police and the marine service.

MOD: To protect it from unauthorized salvage operations?

CF: Exactly. It's a danger. We don't expect that to happen, but we need to be on the cautious side.

MOD: But, who owns this wreck?

CF: All archeological findings in the republic of Panama are owned by the state, that is the law, and the constitution. Salvage of course in our country is an illegal operation unless it has a permit from the government and we are not giving away those permits only to certain companies who fulfill the requisites that we set up.

MOD: So when the conditions allow it you will form a partnership with salvage operators whoever it may be to raise whatever you can from the wreck?

CF: We hope to have a scientific operation in which the salvage or the underwater archeological exploration can allow the recovery of most of it, because it is very shallow, and than otherwise even though UNESCO sort of promotes the preservation in situ of the wrecks. In this particular case what we might have or leave a piece of it there, but most of it needs to be restored in the laboratory. In the Nombre de Dios Township we are going to open a small museum, a terrific exhibit of the findings. Because it's very important for the history of the conquest of the American continent what are the contents and characteristics of such a ship.

MOD: Joining us now from Paris is Lyndel Prott director of UNESCO's Cultural Heritage division. Lyndel, first of all would UNESCO like to see this wreck, which may or may not be the Vizcaina, stay where it is?

LP: Not necessarily what our convention says is that leaving it in situ should be considered as a first option, but there are lots of reasons while that might not be the final decision. If it's in danger and that includes danger from looting and of course that would be very good reason to bring it on land.

MOD: You mention this newly drawn up convention on protection of underwater cultural heritage. It's still to be formally ratified but what is the aim of it, first of all?

LP: It has been adopted. It is now UNESCO's fourth heritage convention and the aim is to see that we get the best possible protection of this underwater heritage which is mainly historic shipwrecks. And hearing of this shipwreck, which clearly could be an extremely important one, that is the kind of shipwreck that we would very much regret if anything is recovered piecemeal without a proper scientific operation as your Panamanian discussant was suggesting.

MOD: The convention deals with shipwrecks which are older than a hundred years, is that right?

LP: They've got to be underwater for a hundred years so they may in fact be very much older. But we don't want to interfere with modern salvage operations and that is one reason why that cutoff date was chosen.

MOD: Also joining us from Key West in Florida is Pat Clyne, Vice President of leading private salvage company, Mel Fisher Enterprises. Pat, I got it your opposed to the convention, why?

PC: Well, absolutely the convention of course was created with good intentions and that is the preservation of our cultural heritage but unfortunately what we thought would be a good archeological step in the right direction turned into basically a political and bureaucratic quagmire. The suggestion, if I may go back to the preservation in situ idea, we believe that is completely a figment of the convention's collective imagination. This does not work. We have worked in shipwrecks in shallow water as well as deep water. And I can tell you that over time the material on these shipwrecks as well as the shipwrecks themselves will eventually descintigrate underwater. It is our duty as professional historic salvors to try and recover these under strict archeological conditions to be able to bring them to the surface, run them through a conservation process, and preserve them for posterity. This is what we have been doing for the past forty years and I believe it's one of the things that UNESCO would like to see done, the only difference is they don't want the private sector to do it. They want only government to be involved in it.

MOD: Lyndel?

LP: Well, there is no problem about anyone being involved in it that follows the rules of the annex to the convention, which set out what are the proper standards for archeological excavation of these wrecks.

MOD: But if a private slavage company operates responsibly and follows the guidelines, what's the problem? I mean companies like Mel Fisher's presumably you'd be happy with having them excavate these kind of wrecks?

LP: Only if they go by the rules that are devised by the experts in maritime archeology and which are in the annex to the convention. What I do have to say is the convention says that it's not sufficient reason to excavate a wreck that you want to sell the artifacts. It doesn't want to see these things commercially exploited if this means that other parts of the wreck are ignored or indeed damaged in recovering these things. All of these finds are dispersed in such a way that they can't be scientifically studied later. I hear from this wreck in Panama that some things had already been removed before the authorities heard about it and that is really tragic because often these objects can be very meaningful in deciding rather or not this is the wreck they think it is.

MOD: Pat, is this the nub of the argument? I guess both of you don't disagree about how to take this stuff out the water if necessary. But where it goes afterwards seems to be the problem. Does it get sold for profit, does it disappear into private collections and so on.

PC: Actually we are probably closer in agreement than we are in difference. The only problem that we have of course is the fact that the UNESCO delegation does not at all see fit for dispursement of any of these artifacts. One of the things that we have found so successful in our operations over the years is that there is a redundancy of many of the articles on these ships. We have found that if we conserve this material, we produce certificates of authenticity, the archeologists glean as much information as they possibly can than we feel that we can market the material in order to get more money to continue on with other expeditions and retrieve other artifacts that may otherwise be lost.

MOD: Are you saying that so much has been found that finding things now kind of duplicates what there already is?

PC: Absolutely, there is a ton of knowledge that we have recovered on the Atocha alone. As an example the Atocha was carrying 250, 000 silver coins, over 90% of those came from Potosi and many of which have the same assayer. Now how many coins does an archeologist need to glean information from that one coin for the world body of knowledge, without saying enough is enough. We can't get any more information from the same type of a coin. In this case we market the coins and the money goes back into the expeditions, whereas it saves taxpayers from having to support the bill, which is going to happen if the UNESCO convention continues in this manner.

MOD: Lyndel, I've read of estimates of something like 3 million wrecks lying on the seabed around the world. Now clearly UNESCO and the government can't deal with all of those so in enviably one would think that private salvage companies have to be involved.

LP: It depends what you mean with "deal with all of those." In the first place if in getting these so called duplicates out of the water, you damage other things that are not duplicates than I think you have made a rather poor bargain. Secondly, there is the question whether you really need to go and excavate some more wrecks. Technology is advancing, we dearly wish that the early excavators on land had not got everything out of their sites because we could now find out much more information by modern technology. And finally the question of preserving in situ there are reasons for leaving things. If for example, a hull is covered by sand, which is very often the case, it has reached a kind of equilibrium with its chemical environment and when you take it out of that environment the wood immediately needs to be treated. It will dry out, it will crumble, and it will be destroyed. So removal is ensuring destruction and leaving it where it is, is the best way to preserve it. This is why we don't see the urgency of trying to excavate all these 3 million wrecks as fast as we can.

MOD: I guess the debate will go on. Lyndel Prott in Paris and Pat Clyne in Florida thank you both very much indeed.