| Popis: |
Even historic shipwrecks are now considered as cultural heritage, there are still challenges in protection, management and research of them. The Baltic Sea is like an enormous underwater museum: the conditions in the Baltic are favourable for the preservation of old wooden shipwrecks, and we have a unique source material of seafaring in our waters. Legislation is a good ground for these measures, but there is much more needed like co-operation between authorities but also the diving community. Regular visual monitoring of underwater cultural heritage is a good goal, but also deeper understanding of the patterns of deterioration procesesses now, when the environmental conditions are changing due to climate change. In this article there are some cases where the legislation has been challenged concerning the status and ownership of shipwrecks and how it has been handled in court in Finland. It is also important to make certain measures when there is a new finding to avoid problems occurred in previous cases. Often the problem is that there is not enough scientifically valid basic information concerning underwater findings, especially complex, well-preserved shipwrecks that can create a large, three-dimensional underwater archaeological site with huge variation of materials and also human remains. How to protect, if you do not have deeper knowledge of the site? We should have a basic information gathered to management plans that will be updated regularly and create proper tools for managing the information. |
