26 10 700 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Queen Hatshepsut’s expedition to the Land of Punt: The first oceanographic cruise? Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource El-Sayed, Sayed Z Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource Spring 1995 Type The nature or genre of the resource Journal Article Zotero Author El-Sayed, Sayed Z Item Type Journal Article Access Date 2005-09-21 Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource Spring 1995 Issue 1 Publication Title Quarterdeck Title A name given to the resource Queen Hatshepsut’s expedition to the Land of Punt: The first oceanographic cruise? URL www-ocean.tamu.edu/Quarterdeck/QD3.1/Elsayed/elsayed-hatshepsut.html Volume 3 https://apconf-much.org/proceedings/files/original/ba30fe74d1a968a6a99dbd27aa31ac9d.mp4 269dfd6b3790c2b9e31766048b113762 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource 2023 Session 13: Major Threats to Underwater Cultural Heritage Subject The topic of the resource Papers presented at Session 13 of the 2023 Asia Pacific Regional Conference on Underwater Cultural Heritage Description An account of the resource Session 13 papers Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Asia Pacific Regional Conference on Underwater Cultural Heritage Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available The Museum of Underwater Archaeology Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource November 2023 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource Asia Pacific Regional Conference on Underwater Cultural Heritage Language A language of the resource English Rights Holder A person or organization owning or managing rights over the resource. Asia Pacific Regional Conference on Underwater Cultural Heritage Moving Image A series of visual representations that, when shown in succession, impart an impression of motion. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource An interview with Elena Perez - Chair of Session 13: Major Threats to Underwater Cultural Heritage Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Elena Perez Michelle Damian Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available The Museum of Underwater Archaeology Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2023 Language A language of the resource English Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource MP4 Asia-Pac Session 13 2023 https://apconf-much.org/proceedings/files/original/a8d6864351b7ed934f9d211b439afdad.mp4 eaa9c1f57548e2834f363af4c2329522 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource 2023 Session 26: General session Subject The topic of the resource Session 26 papers Description An account of the resource Papers presented at Session 26 of the 2023 Asia Pacific Regional Conference on Underwater Cultural Heritage Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Asia Pacific Regional Conference on Underwater Cultural Heritage Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available The Museum of Underwater Archaeology Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource November 2023 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource Asia Pacific Regional Conference on Underwater Cultural Heritage Language A language of the resource English Rights Holder A person or organization owning or managing rights over the resource. Asia Pacific Regional Conference on Underwater Cultural Heritage Moving Image A series of visual representations that, when shown in succession, impart an impression of motion. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource An interview with Elena Perez - Chair of Session 26: General session Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Elena Perez Michelle Damian Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available The Museum of Underwater Archaeology Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2023 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource MP4 Language A language of the resource English Asia-Pac Session 26 2023 https://apconf-much.org/proceedings/files/original/45797196b5f418082118327cf12bec5a.pdf 4f835872505b469e39b2ff2f5a1e7481 PDF Text Text The ethics behind climate change: Small Island Developing States in the Pacific as new underwater cultural heritage Dr. Elena Perez-Alvaro Licit Cultural Heritage Ltd. elenaperezalvaro@gmail.com Abstract Predictions forecast changes in climate that may affect underwater cultural heritage in the future. Warmer waters mean more chemical changes and the proliferation of teredo navalis. Ocean currents may cause disturbances to the layer of sediment protecting underwater cultural heritage sites. The rises in sea levels would reduce the amount of time an air-breathing diver can safely spend under water and hence their productivity. Rises would also mean expansion, which could raise the problem of ocean delimitation. Also our land tangible cultural heritage will be submerged: entire nations and their cultural heritage may disappear, an issue affecting mostly the Small Island Developing States -many of them in the Pacific-, more vulnerable to rises in sea levels. Their identity as citizens of their cities, as members of a community with their own tangible past, complete with their cultural heritage, will disappear. Their land heritage will become underwater cultural heritage but for more than 100 years will not be protected under the 2001 UNESCO Convention. This paper will look at climate change in these Asia-Pacific communities from the ethics as a core element and will study the introduction of these flooded areas as new underwater cultural heritage, proposing an AsiaPacific values-orientated qualification of underwater cultural heritage as a natural resource. Key words: SIDS, tangible cultural heritage, climate change, UNESCO Convention Introduction One of the commonly agreed principles of preservation of underwater cultural heritage named by the 2001 UNESCO Convention on the Protection of the Underwater Cultural Heritage is the preservation in situ �as the first option (Preamble, Article 2.5. and Rule 1 of the Annex (UNESCO, 2001). The reason for this being mainly because archaeological objects are better preserved under layers of mud and in saline water. The ship, once she has sunk and lies at the seabed, reaches a state of equilibrium with the upper parts destroyed and the buried remains covered (Green, 1990). After reaching this state of equilibrium, the wreck will either be only disturbed by human intervention or by geological changes like the ones forecast by climate change (Wachsmann, 2011). Global warming is, as (Chapman, 2003) observes, an environmental and political issue. Climate change is warming the oceans and the ice at the poles is melting causing sea levels to rise. Oceans are also being over fertilized and suffering chemical changes, such as acidification or changes on the salinity. Currents also may change their pattern and consequently, ecosystems are becoming increasingly endangered. These climate changes will have a direct impact on underwater cultural heritage (Dunkley, 2013); (Van de Noort, 2013). Higher global surface temperature will dry out some submerged heritage and, on the contrary, sea-level rises will flood many coastal areas, creating new underwater cultural heritage. In fact, climate change will raise the sea level enough to inundate 136 sites considered by UNESCO to be cultural and historical treasures (Marzeion and Levermann, 2014). In addition, each one of the changes (warmer waters, changes in currents, rising oceans and chemical changes) will have a different effect on the various materials that constitute a submerged archaeological site. Small Island Developing States (SIDS) are vulnerable to rises in sea levels and even become uninhabitable (UNESCO, 2008). In this regard, some authors warn that climate change will also modify social and cultural behaviours, with communities changing how they live and work, migrating �and abandoning their heritage. Therefore, all heritage needs to be considered vulnerable to natural disasters (UNESCO, 2008). The first part of this paper will analyse some cases of sites affected by climate change that have already happened. Later, we will look at the concept of “climate change”. The third part studies what would happen to these Small Islands Developing States and the concept of identity. We will next be looking to both ethical and legal aspects of climate change affecting the cultural heritage. Finally, this paper will propose a new policy for the preservation of underwater cultural heritage under the threat of the climate change. Issue Climate change has already caused damages to underwater cultural heritage. Sheridan and Sheridan (2013) state that civilization is heading to informed self-destruction. They define culture as “the last cab off the climate rank”. Several examples: 1. In Spain, a Phoenician shipwreck is being exposed due to the change of currents affecting the oceans. The shipwreck that was 25 years ago at a depth of 6 metres it is now only at a depth of 1.8 metres (Rubio, 2014). Its preservation in situ may not be the best option anymore, since it is now readily accessible to human intervention and to further changes in the currents that may damage her. 2. The raising of sea levels has disturbed the underwater graves of soldiers killed in World War II on the Marshall Islands (McGrath, 2014). The tides have exposed a cemetery containing 26 human bodies and the coffins and human remains are being washed away. 3. According to a leaked diplomatic cable1, the Dalai Lama called attention to the climate changes that Tibet is suffering. Although �Tibet is entirely landlocked, its temples are being inundated which will convert them to underwater cultural heritage in the future, an example that could be repeated: The Dalai Lama argued that the political agenda should be sidelined for five to ten years and the international community should shift its focus to climate change on the Tibetan plateau. Melting glaciers, deforestation and increasingly polluted water from mining projects were problems that 'cannot wait.' The Dalai Lama criticized China's energy policy, alleging that dam construction in Kham and Amdo have displaced thousands of Tibetans and left temples and monasteries underwater. In view of these examples, climate change is an ultimate moral challenge and cultural heritage managers have to be prepared for policy’s changes (Sheridan and Sheridan, 2013). If the current global temperature is prolonged over the next two millennia, 40 of the UNESCO Cultural World Heritage sites will be affected. Of the 720 sites listed in the cultural and mixed categories in the UNESCO World Heritage list, 136 of them will be impacted by rises in sea levels (Marzeion and Levermann, 2014). In addition, 3 to 12 countries will lose more than half of their current land surface (Marzeion and Levermann, 2014). Consequently, climate change may affect the underwater cultural heritage in two forms: a) Additional submerged places will be created and, on the contrary, previously submerged places will become exposed. A total of fifteen of the world’s twenty megacities are situated by the sea. “If water levels rise even further, by 3, 4 or 5 metres in centuries to come, we will have to give up some of the cities” (Rahmstorf and Richardson, 2009). These underwater cities or even countries will be in the future underwater cultural heritage. This paper will focus on this aspect. �b) The current underwater cultural heritage will be affected, damaged or moved. Variations in seawater follow universal chemical, physical and biological laws. The shipwreck, in contact with water, experiences equilibrium (Florian, 1987). At 400-800 metres depth archaeological sites experience low and near constant water temperatures all year-round (Daly, 2011). Sunlight, a biodeterioration accelerator, does not penetrate below 200m. At the seafloor the current speeds are often very low with minimal tidal effects and sediment transfer rates are also low. Erosion by currents, tidal movements or changes in water circulation, resulting in objects being removed and displaced is a real threat as well as erosion by dredging, fishing and anchoring. Sediment accretion will be also having consequences (Chapman, 2003): archaeological deposits could be buried by accreting silts. As a consequence, the discovering of the new underwater sites would be more difficult. State of knowledge Earth is a planet with high water content (71%). In fact it should be called Ocean, instead of Earth as the volume of water is 1370 million km³ (Rahmstorf and Richardson, 2009). There are four main climate changes that will affect the oceans: 1. The Warming of the Waters. There have always been fluctuations in water temperature, especially in the surface layer of water that is in direct contact with the atmosphere (the top 50–200 metres). The temperature in this layer has increased by more than 3°C in the last 50 years. Such an increase in temperature will most likely gradually spread to deeper layers, where shipwrecks and other heritage sites are located. This warming could result in changes such as coral bleaching and species migration. Other issues will also affect �underwater tangible heritage such as chemical changes or the increasing of shipworms. 2. Currents. Some experts predict that climate change could cause a possible interruption of the thermohaline circulation, largely responsible for regulating the earth’s temperature. Such change would affect the submerged heritage in different ways, such as the modification of the sediment layer. Much underwater cultural heritage is preserved at present thanks to a protective layer of sediment, mostly formed by microorganisms. Any disturbance of this layer could damage the archaeological materials. A change in currents can also displace some or all of a submerged archaeological site, decontextualizing it from its original location or otherwise dispersing the objects. 3. Chemical Changes. A variety of chemical changes might occur in the waters as a result of climate change such as acidity and salinity. If the pH of seawater decreases and the oxygen increases, it will become more acidic. As a consequence, underwater material is more likely to corrode. Also textiles dissolve more readily in acidic water, meaning any archaeological textiles remaining under water would likely be lost. Changes in salinity may also be proved problematic since salinity also accelerates corrosion. 4. The Rising Sea Levels. Increased global temperatures melts land ice, which adds water to the sea. Similarly, an increase in water temperature results in the expansion of the sea, since warm water occupies a larger volume than colder water. Sea levels react only very slowly, and it takes many centuries—or even millennia—for large continental ice masses to melt. However, since ice masses are becoming wetter because of the contact with water, they will almost certainly melt at a much faster rate. Researchers estimate �that there will be a rise in the sea level of between 18 and 59 cm by the year 2100; but it could exceed one metre. The rising sea level would be the most difficult challenge facing cultural heritage. Not only could it submerge the land-based cultural heritage, but underwater cultural heritage might also be affected. Some of the issues recognised in this regard are as follows:  Increased depth. More water means greater depth and shipwrecks lying on the seabed will be subject to greater pressure, which may be more than they can withstand.  Prospection. It would have an effect, mainly due to the reduction in the amount of time a diver can remain under water.  Marine boundaries. Higher sea levels will result in legal maritime boundaries becoming less well-defined. Political issues and legal disputes are expected to arise in the affected areas and the melting of the Arctic will open new maritime commercial routes which will translate into claiming of new territories as we will see.  Flooding. Some land-based archaeological sites will flood, meaning that some cultural heritage will become underwater cultural heritage.  Increased storms. Higher sea levels will cause more powerful storms that will devastate low-lying areas. These will be in the form of tropical storms and hurricanes/cyclones, at best eroding at worst destroying both land and underwater heritage. Although these are largely predictions for the future, some cultural heritage sites are already experiencing these changes. Small Islands Developing States The Pacific Islands region comprises 22 countries and territories, nine of them fully independent (Barnett and Campbell, 2010). It is divided into �three regions: Melanesia -of large cultural diversity and more than 800 languages spoken-, Polynesia -more homogenous- with “only” 30 languages- and Micronesia -with strong links to the United States (Barnett and Campbell, 2010). This cultural diversity may change for the effects of climate change. The IPCC 4th assessment report identifies small island states as being the most vulnerable countries of the world to the adverse impacts of climate change. The Pacific is in fact one of the world’s most vulnerable regions. Not only their cultural heritage will be affected but also their agriculture, water resources, forestry, tourism and other industry-related sectors. However, the impact of climate change in these communities will not only be noticeable on flooding lands, but also in its effects on agricultural production and fisheries, and, as a consequence, in the availability of food. However, there has been little research on understanding how people is going to adapt to climate change. For instance, the Tuvalu State is already losing not only its territory because of the floodings, but also its identity and heritage: its culture as a nation is transforming. Communities on the Torres Strait are also suffering king tides and flooding that make life non-viable. The islands will probably be completely submerged in the future, meaning 7000 people already have to adapt to climate change. Australia has invited them to live on Australian territory but this would mean that the land of such states—and, therefore, their tangible culture—will be lost. There are two basic responses to climate change for these territories: mitigation and adaptation. Mitigation includes all policies and laws that have been drafted on climate change. Adaptation has its origins in evolutionary biology, seen as the basis for natural selections and it implies long-term processes. This paper proposes a mix of mitigation and �adaptation actions in order to understand and face the effects of climate change on the cultural heritage. Ethical dilemmas This section will highlight the main ethical dilemmas attached to the loss of a territory, as it is going to happen to some Asia-Pacific States. 1. Identity seems a concept intrinsically linked to the concept of heritage. For Ashworth (2007) heritage is a need of the individual and of society to reinforce a socio-cultural identity: it is a contemporary commodity and it is linked to the concept of “national identity” that can be shaped through a few selected points of heritage and supporting mythologies. An object of heritage can become an evocative symbol of identification that acts as a trigger for emotions and narratives. 2. Emotion: this identification of a person with a place or an object is established because the person identifies itself with the place (or object) and feels something related to it. In this regard, Smith (2006) concludes that the “real sense of heritage is when our emotions and sense of self are truly engaged”. The emotional value of heritage is felt and it is reinforced through experiences and re-experiences that create a sense of nostalgia (Smith and Waterton, 2009). Heritage is then not valued for the specific information it contains but for the notions it evokes among people. 3. Memories: memories, as emotions, are not spontaneous but they need to be actively remembered (Smith and Waterton, 2009): they need a root in a concrete object or site and need to be maintained. Cultural heritage is intrinsically political and symbolic, used in lieu of description to evoke memories or emotions. And it is highly selective. If some Small Island Developing States of the Pacific leave their territories and, as a consequence, part of their tangible cultural heritage, �they will lose part of their identity, their memories and the emotions that they experience with their heritage. Legal perspective Legislation can be used to minimize human threats to underwater cultural heritage. There is only 1.9 million km² of ocean area where nature conservation regulations apply. There is some Marine Protected Areas (MPA) but some authors (Rahmstorf and Richardson, 2009) believe that at least 20 to 30% of the world’s oceans should be protected. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC, 2007), Group I concludes that the oceans are warming and the salinification of water is changing. Although they are not visible ocean circulation changes, the ocean biogeochemistry is changing since there is evidence of decreased oxygen concentrations. And the sea level is definitely rising (IPCC, 2007). Despite of all this information, international instruments fails to protect cultural heritage from climate change forces (Sheridan and Sheridan, 2013). There are gaps in the capacity of the legislation for future protection. Only the Convention Concerning the Protection of the Worlds Cultural and Natural Heritage (1972) has some response to climate change (Sheridan and Sheridan, 2013). The 2001 UNESCO Convention on the Protection of the Underwater Cultural Heritage does not mention climate change as an adverse factor for underwater cultural heritage. However, Dromgoole (2013) feels that the term in the definition “partially or totally underwater, periodically or continuously, for at least 100 years” is of importance for the predicted sea level changes due to climate change. However, and despite this minor concession, the Convention does not explicitly mention “climate change” and as a consequence, it does not propose solutions. Neither the 1982 UNCLOS Convention does. �The UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (1992) has no direct reference to underwater cultural heritage, nor does the Kyoto Protocol (1997) which aims to reduce the levels of greenhouse gases. The instruments that try to cover the topic provide good intentions rather than solutions. They make a good starting point for the development of the field, although they tend to be vague and imprecise and no remedies are proposed. As a consequence, there is a need for ranking the potential impact of climate change on individual heritage and determining the vulnerability, sensitivity and resilience to future changes (Howard, 2003). Conclusions As this paper has tried to demonstrate, rises in sea levels, warmer waters, ocean acidification and changes in currents will affect underwater cultural heritage (Dunkley, 2013). Warmer waters mean more energetic oceans (that cause more erosion) and the migration of invasive species. It also means expansion, which will cause the problem of oceans delimitation. In addition, this rises in sea levels will reduce the amount of time and productivity an air-breathing diver can spend under water safely. In addition, saltier waters mean less clear waters. Changes in ocean temperatures also affect and alter oceanic currents which will have an impact on underwater visibility for divers besides of the erosion of the heritage. And although the direct effects of acidification are not still well understood (but it is known that will harm marine fauna) it increases the current rates of metal corrosion, which will be particularly harmful to the underwater heritage of the World Wars (Dunkley, 2013). Each site deserves unique treatment and it is difficult to set common criteria. The climate change consequences on heritage need different strands of research, like risk factors, socio-economic research and nature and cultural stress factors (UNESCO, 2008). Some authors predict that �future generations will face damage and loss of underwater cultural heritage or will have to make great efforts to protect them (Marzeion and Levermann, 2014). However, as Sheridan and Sheridan (2013) observe, it seems that people may need to see their cultural heritage threatened, temples washed away or cathedrals destroyed by flooding to be convinced of the effects of climate change in culture and to evaluate and propose solutions. However, it is erroneous to assume that the most visible remains are the most threatened. There is a need for practical and political response to the effects of climate change on underwater cultural heritage but also a priority of raising awareness of the impacts. Some authors emphasise the inadequate financial resources and a lack of creativity on managing underwater cultural heritage despite it being a growing “industry” (Kingsley, 2011). Some inter-agency cooperation might be necessary (Van de Noort, 2013), as well as convincing policy makers to include climate change impacts in planning (Cassar and Pender, 2005). This paper proposes the inclusion of underwater cultural heritage as natural heritage, which is another subject on policy agendas for protecting the world’s oceans from climate change. The differentiation between cultural and natural is a barrier that excludes underwater cultural heritage and avoids a common interdisciplinary work, as it will be seen in the next section. However, is an Asia-Pacific values-orientated qualification of underwater cultural heritage as a natural resource, focusing on identifying and recovering the connections between the nature and culture sectors. Proposal The present study focuses the required actions to manage the underwater cultural heritage under the threat of climate change in four steps: recognizing the loss, starting the debate, creating a legal framework in �which situate the debate and recognizing underwater cultural heritage as a natural resource. 1. Recognizing the loss: there have already been two periods of climate change in the past which could have affected the heritage. It is essential to understand that although climate change does destroy the heritage, it also creates new heritage (for instance flooded cities or islands will become underwater cultural heritage in 100 years). This is an ethical issue on heritage as process: understanding that it is inevitable to lose some cultural heritage but that we will also gain some. On these premises, however, it is again the time to evaluate the importance of the sites and to undertake actions to preserve the selected ones. 2. Starting the debate: climate change debate has occupied few concerns in the archaeological and heritage arena. Whatever the causes, the effects may be devastating (Chapman, 2003). This paper has tried to trigger the debate, which needs to be discussed and disseminated through academic, social and political agendas. 3. Creating a legal framework: the 2001 UNESCO Convention that guides States on the management of their underwater cultural heritage does not include climate change as a danger to the heritage. As with any other international instruments, the authors of the Convention would hope to become an example to the states (Carman, 2013). If this Convention does not take climate change into consideration neither will States. This paper presents a high-risk concept: underwater cultural heritage is a part of the oceans and as a consequence underwater cultural heritage preservation has more similarities to underwater natural heritage than to terrestrial cultural heritage. Although the methodology (archaeology) and the ethical concerns that both underwater and land heritage face have a major equivalence, in the aspects of preserving and facing climate change, underwater cultural heritage has to fight the same battles as the �natural heritage in the oceans. The changes that will affect them are the same. As a consequence, the same legal and political agendas on climate change affecting the oceans should already include (as coral reefs are included) underwater cultural heritage on their agendas. 4. Recognizing underwater cultural heritage as a natural resource: Aznar-Gómez (2013) states that although underwater cultural heritage is not considered a natural resource by the UNCLOS Convention, the seabed and the sand is covering the archaeological objects. Also the nonsedentary fishing species live around artificial reefs made by shipwrecks. For this reason, some authors (Rössler, 2006) have tried to link cultural and biological diversity for the better preservation of underwater cultural heritage. In fact, the 1972 Convention Concerning the Protection of the World Cultural and Natural Heritage is an instrument for the preservation of both, cultural and natural heritage. Aplin (2002) argues that distinction between natural and cultural heritage is blurred and Chapman (2003) reminds the close relationship between ecological and archaeological site management and suggests a liaison between archaeologists and other parties interested in natural environment. Lixinski (2008: 379) claims that the “nature and culture dichotomy” listed in the 1972 World Heritage Convention is simply artificial, as it is proved to be in the wording “the combined works of nature and man”. According to the author, the holistic approach to heritage seen as “significance” and not as a place or as an object blurs that dichotomy. Accordingly, it is necessary to adjust natural policies on the oceans to accommodate underwater cultural heritage. If shipwrecks are considered artificial reefs, the same preservation policies applied to natural reefs can be applied to the artificial ones (that is, underwater cultural heritage). �Endnotes 1 US embassy cables. The guardian. 10th August 2010 Available at: http://www.theguardian.com/world/us-embassy-cables-documents/220120 References Aplin, G. 2002. Heritage identification, conservation and management. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Ashworth, G. J. 2007. On townscapes, heritages and identities. In: Institute for Advanced Studies Colloquium on Urban-Rural (2007). Flows and Boundaries. Lancaster: Lancaster University. Aznar-Gómez, M.J. 2013. Treasure hunters. In: AIMA 13 Conference: Towards Ratification: Australia's Underwater Cultural Heritage. [Unpublished paper]. Canberra: 4 October 2013 Barnett, J., and Campbell, J. 2010. Climate change and small island states: Power, knowledge, and the South Pacific. Earthscan. Carman, J. 2013. Legislation in Archaeology: Overview and Introduction. In: C. Smith (2013) Encyclopaedia of Global Archaeology. New York: Springer: 4469-4485 Cassar, M. and Pender, R. 2005. The impact of climate change on cultural heritage: evidence and response. Published in the 14th Triennial Meeting The Hague Preprints. Vol. II. Chapman, H. P. 2003. Global warming: The implications for sustainable archaeological resource management. Conservation and management of archaeological sites, 5(4): 241-245. Daly, C. 2011. Climate change and the Conservation of Archaeological sites: a review of impacts theory conservation and management of archaeological sites. Dublin Institute of Technology, vol. 13, no 4: 293310. Dromgoole, S. 2013. Underwater cultural heritage and international law. Cambridge University Press. (Vol. 101). �Dunkley, M. 2013. Ocean Climate Change and Underwater Archaeology. [online]. English Heritage 12th September 2013. Available at: http://heritagecalling.com/2013/09/12/oceanic-climate-change-andunderwater-archaeology/. Florian, M-L.E. 1987. Deterioration of organic materials other than wood. In C. Pearson (1987). Conservation of marine archaeological objects. Butterworth and Co Publishers: 21-54. Green, J. 1990. Maritime Archaeology: A technical Handbook. San Diego: Academic Press. Howard, P. 2003. Heritage: management, interpretation, identity. London: Library of Congress Cataloguing-in Publication Data. IPCC 2007. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Fourth Assessment Report on Climate Change. Available at: https://www.ipccwg1.unibe.ch/. Kingsley, S. 2011. Challenges of Maritime Archaeology: in too deep. In: T.F. King (2011). A companion to cultural resource management. Wiley: Blackwell Publications: 223-244. Kyoto Protocol 1997. United Nations. Available at: http://unfccc.int/kyoto_protocol/items/2830.php. Lixinski, L. 2008. World Heritage and the Heritage of the World: Book Review. By F.Francioni and F. Lenzerini. The 1972 World Heritage Convention: A Commentary, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2008 European Journal of Legal Studies. Vol 2 (1) 2008: 371-386. McGrath, M. 2014. Climate change helps seas disturb Japanese war dead [online]. BBC News: Science and Environment. 7th June 2014. Available at: http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-27742957. Marzeion, B. and Levermann, A. 2014. Loss of cultural world heritage and currently inhabited places to sea-level rise. Environmental Research Letters. 9 (2014) 034001: 1-7. Rahmstorf, S. and Richardson, K. 2009. Our threatened Oceans. The sustainability Project. London: Haus Publishing. �Rössler, M. 2006. World Heritage- Linking Cultural and Biological Diversity. In: B.T. Hoffman (2006). Art and Cultural Heritage: Law, Policy and Practice. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press: 201-205. Rubio, M. 2014. Peligro: el mar devuelve el barco fenicio. [online]. Laverdad.es: Murcia. 6th May 2014. Available at: http://www.laverdad.es/murcia/v/20140505/mazarron/peligro-devuelvebarco-fenicio-20140505.html. Sheridan, R. and Sheridan, J. 2013. International heritage instruments and climate change. Illinois: Common Ground Publishing LLC. Smith, L. 2006. Uses of Heritage. London and New York: Routledge. Smith, L. and Waterton, E. 2009. Heritage, Communities and Archaeology. Wiltshire: Duckworth Debates in Archaeology. UNESCO 1972. Convention concerning the Protection of the World Cultural and Natural Heritage. Paris, 16 November 1972. Available at: http://whc.unesco.org/en/conventiontext/. UNESCO 2001. Convention on the Protection of the Underwater Cultural Heritage. Paris, 2 November 2001. Available at: http://unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0012/001260/126065e.pdf. UNESCO 2008. Policy Document on the Impacts of Climate Change on World Heritage Properties. UNESCO World Heritage Centre publications on climate change. Available at: http://whc.unesco.org/en/CC-policydocument/ United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change 1994. United Nations “Rio Conventions”. Available at: http://unfccc.int/essential_background/convention/items/6036.php. Van de Noort, R. 2013. Wetland Archaeology in the 21st Century: Adapting to Climate Change. In F. Menotti and A. O’Sullivan (2013). The Oxford Handbook of Wetland Archaeology. Oxford: Oxford University Press: 719732. �Wachsmann, S. 2011. Deep-submergence Archaeology. In: A. Catsambis, B. Ford and D.L. Hamilton (2011). The Oxford Handbook of Maritime Archaeology. Oxford: Oxford University Press: 202-221. Biography Elena Perez-Alvaro, doctor in Underwater Cultural Heritage, is a cultural heritage consultant for Licit Cultural Heritage Ltd. Her primary responsibility is to provide the clients with curatorial specialist advice, from management to legal or uses advice. Her publications consider ethical, legal and management aspects of cultural heritage, including the valuation and interpretation of cultural heritage, protection from climate change, the enhancement of intangible heritage, the relationship between natural and cultural heritage, cultural heritage of colonised countries or the cultural heritage of indigenous communities. She has also undertaken a wide variety of teaching posts, including at university level. � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource 2017 Session 7: Underwater Cultural Heritage Politics, Laws, Ethics and Values Description An account of the resource All cultural materials are potentially cultural resources. However, because not all of them can be preserved or studied, choices must be made based on evaluation and re-evaluation. Values are learned and depend on cultural, intellectual, historical, and psychological frames of reference. Consequently, valuation is made individually, but is shared by communities. Valuation of underwater cultural heritage has, then, a broad range of determining value depending on the community to which it belongs. A clear example of this is the protection of human remains. The 2001 UNESCO Convention includes, in its definition of underwater cultural heritage, human remains which have been underwater for more than 100 years. However, the Christian philosophy on the treatment of human remains is different to that of Asian philosophy that teaches that human remains will never become underwater cultural heritage since, if they are seen by someone in an underwater site, it is imperative to rescue the human remains and bury them on land according to their beliefs. This session aims to create a forum for policymakers, managers, and archaeologists devoted to underwater cultural heritage where they can share their experiences of and research on the valuation of underwater cultural heritage. We aim to accept papers that help us to understand the definition of ‘underwater cultural heritage’ in the Asia-Pacific regions, comparing those definitions with the definition of the 2001 UNESCO Convention and trying to find a common interpretation. We will also be looking to examine the meaning of the underwater cultural heritage sites and objects for different communities. Finally, we will be expecting papers exploring the different possibilities of the use and/or conservation of this underwater cultural heritage according to the values and needs of the different communities. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Elena Perez-Alvaro Licit Cultural Heritage Ltd., UK Document A resource containing textual data. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre text. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource The ethics behind climate change: Small Island Developing States in the Pacific as new underwater cultural heritage Description An account of the resource Predictions forecast changes in climate that may affect underwater cultural heritage in the future. Warmer waters mean more chemical changes and the proliferation of teredo navalis. Ocean currents may cause disturbances to the layer of sediment protecting underwater cultural heritage sites. The rises in sea levels would reduce the amount of time an air-breathing diver can safely spend under water and hence their productivity. Rises would also mean expansion, which could raise the problem of ocean delimitation. Also our land tangible cultural heritage will be submerged: entire nations and their cultural heritage may disappear, an issue affecting mostly the Small Island Developing States -many of them in the Pacific-, more vulnerable to rises in sea levels. Their identity as citizens of their cities, as members of a community with their own tangible past, complete with their cultural heritage, will disappear. Their land heritage will become underwater cultural heritage but for more than 100 years will not be protected under the 2001 UNESCO Convention. This paper will look at climate change in these Asia-Pacific communities from the ethics as a core element and will study the introduction of these flooded areas as new underwater cultural heritage, proposing an AsiaPacific values-orientated qualification of underwater cultural heritage as a natural resource. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Elena Perez-Alvaro Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available The Museum of Underwater Archaeology Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 11/24/2017 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource Elena Perez-Alvaro Asia-Pac Session 7 2017 https://apconf-much.org/proceedings/files/original/07b31d71e8d6e8e23c99940899e32be7.pdf 1a066cd4f1803116f0a381b68edefd8c PDF Text Text Decommissioning Offshore Structures: A Threat or an Underwater Cultural Heritage Opportunity Dr Elena Perez-Alvaro¹ and Dr James Delgado² ¹Professor Master in Cultural and Natural Heritage UNIR, España ICOMOS International Committee on the Underwater Cultural Heritage ²Senior Vice President SEARCH, Inc., United States of America ABSTRACT This article focuses on the possibility of recycling, removing, and leaving on-site offshore structures, such as wind turbines and oil platforms. It also looks at the environmental consequences of these structures recycling mostly carried out in southern Asian countries with limited work and environmental regulations. The construction of some of these offshore structures does not provide ‘end-of-life’ considerations, so, if left in situ they will become underwater cultural heritage in the future. This article will look at the benefits of a collaboration between offshore and maritime industries and underwater cultural heritage practitioners. It will also highlight the importance of including as underwater cultural heritage less “attractive” sites which may not be as popular, but can still be of importance. If forgotten, we may lose a significant part of humanity’s history. List of tables Table 1. SWOT analysis: Strengths/Opportunities/Weaknesses/Threats (created by authors). INTRODUCTION The topic of this paper fits best within the session on Major Threats to Underwater Cultural Heritage at the Fifth Asia-Pacific Regional Conference on Underwater Cultural Heritage because the actions that are being taken now in relation to the decommissioning of offshore structures will have a potential impact on the future scope of and management of underwater cultural heritage. The decommissioning of offshore structures is still in a legal vacuum, and, if left untouched on the ocean, they will become underwater cultural heritage in the future. New offshore energy and developments in the oceans are a growing but still completely unexplored industry. Oil and gas platforms have been developed for longer, but it is in the current and future decades when they will stop working. A new issue for ocean users is that offshore oil, gas reserves and wind farms trigger one of the largest decommissioning operations undertaken in the marine environment (Ross 1978). When offshore structures reach the end of their productive life, they are decommissioned and then dismantled, recycled, or disposed of. However, construction of these elements does not provide ‘end of life’ considerations. Over the next several decades, more than 7,500 oil and gas platforms in the waters of 53 countries will become obsolete (Fowler et al. 2018), including platforms that sit on the seabed, floating production systems, and other offshore storage and loading units (Simpson 1998). Their decommissioning will cause many issues because, due to their size and weight, the removal of platforms is a complex engineering process that will require some of the heaviest lifting operations ever attempted at sea. This dismantling, recycling, or preservation in situ of those platforms will have an impact on the underwater cultural heritage because, for the first time, underwater cultural heritage experts can anticipate what is going to become – or not become – submerged heritage in the future. In addition, the removal of these structures of which many have become habitats may have a detrimental impact on the local natural environment. 1 �Underwater cultural heritage can and does include sites or resources that reflect threats to the environment. This takes place on land with sites associated with extractive mining, as well as industrial sites where past processing or manufacturing have left a legacy that is both archaeological and detrimental to the ecosystem and/or human health. However, this negative aspect does not diminish the potential significance of the site(s) nor their potential to yield pertinent archaeological evidence. For example, the oil boom in the United States started with the commercial success of the Drake Well drilled in 1859 in Pennsylvania along the banks of Oil Creek, it was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1966 and subsequently listed on the National Register of Historic Places (Drake Well Museum, n.d.). The query here is - if we should preserve sites that only speak to what we see as positive aspects, or if we should embrace the preservation and study of sites that speak to all aspects of the human experience and the consequences of human activities? This paper argues that underwater cultural heritage practitioners and the new energy industry can mutually benefit from sharing knowledge and working together. Underwater cultural heritage, like that on land, reflects all aspects of human behaviour. A Panamanian historical and archaeological site, the American-built submersible Sub Marine Explorer, represents mid-nineteenth century over-fishing and despoliation of Panama’s oyster beds (Delgado 2012). There is a strong potential for extensive archaeological remains from the centuries-long Middle Passage of the transatlantic African slave trade (Turner et al. 2020) as well as individual shipwrecks (Delgado et al. 2022). Other pertinent examples include historic and archaeological sites related to gold dredging, sites associated with the global wars of the twentieth century, and perhaps the most pertinent, the World Heritage Site at Bikini Atoll, which include nuclear test structures, sunken ships, craters, and radioactive isotopes (Brown 2013). CASE STUDY According to Offshore Wind, there are 162 offshore wind arms at the moment. There are also 2,011 offshore oil rigs. In recent years, the first few offshore wind projects are now dismantled (Smith and Lamont 2017), but the decommissioning projects are small relative to current installations. In fact, most of these decommissioning projects were demonstration or research projects. However, according to IHS Markit (2016), 2,000 offshore projects will be decommissioned between 2021 and 2014. Due to the novelty of the situation, the impacts of decommissioning practices on structures related to oil and gas development from the oceans are unknown. This article will look at how the decommissioning of these offshore structures will have an impact on how underwater cultural heritage is currently understood. The resources for this work include the 2001 UNESCO Convention on the Protection of the Underwater Cultural Heritage (hereinafter 2001 UNESCO Convention) and practice of nations. RESOURCES The 2001 UNESCO Convention defines underwater cultural heritage as […] all traces of human existence having a cultural, historical, or archaeological character which have been partially or totally under water, periodically or continuously, for at least 100 years. It should be noted that pipelines and cables placed on the seabed are explicitly excluded from the definition of underwater cultural heritage. In addition, “[i]nstallations other than pipelines and cables, placed on the seabed and still in use, shall not be considered as underwater cultural heritage.” However, when those installations, such as platforms, are no longer in use then they may become 2 �underwater cultural heritage if they are also of an archaeological or historical interest and have been under water for more than 100 years. However, not all countries have ratified the 2001 UNESCO Convention, and not all national legislations require a time limit (as in the case of 100 years under water) for an offshore structure to become of importance. Some countries, such as France, Croatia, and Estonia, do not have a temporal limit in their definition of underwater cultural heritage, and submerged remains are protected based on historical interest. In Greece, ‘cultural’ objects are protected 50 years after their sinking. Furthermore, it is a wise practice to assess the potential of sites that are more recent as being significant and worthy of recognition, study, and preservation. In the United States of America (USA), for instance, like Greece the 50-year rule is applied, exceptions are made for events that occurred and which have attained recognition of significance; World War II sites were granted this designation by the USA in the 1980s, less than fifty years after the start and end of that war. It is beyond the scope of this paper to get entangled with the definition of underwater cultural heritage, which has been broadly debated in the literature (see bibliography). However, this demonstrates that offshore structures that function for some years now can become underwater cultural heritage according to much legislation, and in 100 years, they will be under the umbrella of the 2001 UNESCO Convention. In fact, existing platforms and wind turbines have a constructionoperation-decommission cycle of 20 to 30 years (Smyth et al. 2015). However, the regulation of the disposal of offshore installations is not a clear nor regulated legal process (Forte 1998), so many decisions are on a case-by-case basis. Until now, none of these decisions have taken into consideration the possibility for these structures to become underwater cultural heritage for the future benefit of humankind. There are a number of sites that are highly significant because they represent industries or activities that reflect environmental despoilation and damage such as whaling ships, for example, which can be found as floating ships, shipwrecks, and shore-based sites. Such is the case with South Georgia Island (USA), the British Columbia (Canada) coast, and the various sites in Australia and in Chile’s portion of the Estrecho de Magallanes. There are also early sites associated with the extractive petroleum industry listed in the United States National Register of Historic Places, the Canadian National Historic Sites, and deemed significant in Saudi Arabia and other countries (Symons et al. 2014). FRAMEWORK There are three main approaches when decommissioning offshore structures: 1. Dismantling and recycling: Globally, over 40 platforms each year reach the end of their useful life, which equates to around 40,000 tonnes of potentially recyclable materials (Choi et al. 2016). However, the most profitable shipbreaking methods are also the most dangerous to both worker safety and the environment (Choi et al. 2016), since many of the structures have been constructed with materials that are now known to be both toxic and highly pollutant. The materials that are recycled usually employ some dangerous methods. For instance beaching, which are carried out in southern Asian countries with a lack of enforced environmental legislation and welfare working regulations. The practice of beaching these platforms means to ground them in order for them to be scrapped. Although in some countries of the world there are strict regulations for platforms to be dismantled and recycled, in other countries, such as Bangladesh, India and Pakistan, there are facilities where the safety and well-being of the workers and the environmental impacts are ignored (Choi et al. 2016). In 2022, at least 10 workers lost their lives when breaking apart platforms on a particular coast of Bangladesh (NGO Shipwrecking Platform, n.d.). Some of the accidents were on platforms owned by wellknown companies. There are fatal consequences of recycling these structures: necessary diving activities that can result in injury or fatalities or helicopter trips necessary for the 3 �workforce and supervisory staff. It is necessary to take into consideration that in shallower waters, platforms typically weigh around 5,000 tonnes, although some deep-water steel platforms weigh over 200,000 tonnes when in-service and around 40,000 tonnes when stripped to its skeletal frame. The scrap resulting from this recycling process is often auctioned off to scrap dealers or sold to cash buyers (NGO Shipwreck Platform, n.d.). 2. Leaving them totally intact: There are two main reasons to leave the platforms untouched after decommissioned or sinking them to the bottom of the oceans. The first reason is economical. It has been estimated that the global cost of removal of platforms is US$210 billion (IHS Markit 2016). However, there is also an environmental reason. After some years, underwater remains become, in most cases, artificial reefs, housing thousands of fish species. The disturbance of these ecosystems and the impacts of removing these can have a negative impact on the marine environment. Some researchers (Fowler 2018) have looked at the environmental impacts of the decommissioning practices and the removal of offshore wind turbines. The authors consider that complete removal of the structures have a negative impact on biodiversity, provision of reef habitat and protection from bottom trawling because of the reopening of areas of fishing. In addition, as explained, there are some chemical-contaminated sections of the structures, and bringing them to shore can also be a controversial issue. In fact, dealing with hazards are one of the main issues that arises when offshore structures are left in the oceans, including the release of toxic, flammable, or explosive materials, or failure consequences that can result in environmental disasters (Baker 1998). The reality is that, in 100 years, the platform will become underwater cultural heritage according to the 2001 UNESCO Convention. 3. For some authors, partial removal options are better options, which still means these structures will become underwater cultural heritage in the future and be under the umbrella of the 2001 UNESCO Convention. It is argued that just some of the most toxic parts of the structures could be dismantled or those parts that can imply a navigation hazard. As discuss below, over 500 energy platforms previously installed on the USA Outer Continental Shelf have been partially removed and made into artificial reefs in the Gulf of Mexico in coordination with USA coastal states and other stakeholders including fisherman. According to Jordan and Bennie (1998), one of the most important controversies over the decommissioning of offshore structures is the relationship between the public and private interest. In the case of the Brent Spar, a North Sea oil storage operated by Shell UK, the company shared that deep sea sinking was the safest option for disposal from an environmental and safety point of view. However, Greenpeace occupied the platform for more than three weeks and provoked a media scandal that damaged Shell’s reputation, arguing that sinking the platform was just to cut costs and not for scientific reasons. Finally, Shell decided to reuse much of the main structure of the platform for a new harbour facility (Jordan and Bennie 1998). The legislation at the moment requires complete removal of offshore installations, but it allows exceptions that fulfil technical criteria (Forte 1998). Although the main objective of this paper is not to evaluate the best option for the decommissioning of offshore structures, it is pertinent to value the impact that leaving these structures under water would have to the construction of a new kind of underwater cultural heritage. Table 1 shows a SWOT analysis in order to understand the strengths, opportunities, weaknesses, and threats of leaving these structures as underwater cultural heritage. 4 �Table 1. SWOT analysis: Strengths/Opportunities/Weaknesses/Threats (created by authors). STRENGTHS Cultural heritage for the future of mankind Low economical cost Avoid occupational safety of dismantling Avoid noise of dismantling OPPORTUNITIES Environmental aspects such as fish reefs Learn from the future Public and private initiatives such as diving Future uses WEAKNESSES Non-natural bodies in the oceans Uncertainty in public acceptance Changed visual landscape impact Possible overlap with other ocean actors THREATS How many? Some? All of them? Maintenance issues Oil and gas spills Safety navigation hazards For instance, the Gulf of Mexico is an example of possible preservation as a maritime landscape whose 20th century underwater cultural heritage includes not only oil tankers wrecks, but the evolving landscape of oil wells that are progressively shifted from shallow to deep water, as well as the technology and changes in offshore oil well rigs. Such a maritime landscape would also include the extensive deep-sea infrastructure of not only wells but pipelines, and the onshore infrastructure such as the Houston Ship Channel and refineries (BOEM 2021). Ironically, perhaps, the provision under federal laws in the USA to assess the potential impacts to cultural resources has led to an extensive and well documented range of underwater cultural heritage in the Gulf as a result of compliance with those laws and regulations. RESULTS Offshore structures are products of modern civilizations; additionally, harbours and caravels were developments of past civilizations. Today, we aim to preserve the tangible remains of those past developments, and, as we preserve lighthouses and Viking longships, future civilizations may want to protect offshore structures as proof of progress and blossom of energy construction in the 21st century. The research approach of this paper is focused on calling for a collaborative partnership between the new energy industry and underwater cultural heritage experts. It is one of the first opportunities in history where underwater cultural heritage practitioners can foresee what is going to become underwater cultural heritage in the future. It is a unique opportunity to decide how important this heritage will become for humanity and to establish a dialogue with these companies on aspects such as preservation of metal under water, oil spills control or the dichotomy between cultural and natural tangible remains in the oceans, all of which underwater cultural heritage practitioners have experience with (Perez-Alvaro 2019). Popularity of beautiful underwater cultural heritage sites does not always equate significance, and some of the offshore infrastructures addressed in this article may also need to be considered, recognized, designated as heritage, and preserved. It is also important to highlight the benefits of the construction and dismantling of these offshore structures to underwater cultural heritage because prior to any offshore construction, research must reveal that no underwater archaeological sites are located in the planned location and new archaeological sites can be discovered. However, there is still a lot to do regarding policies and procedures in offshore energy extraction. The archaeological education for 5 �energy farm construction companies and workers is essential to respecting underwater cultural heritage. Clarification of best practices in the development sectors of the oceans will need to emerge in the next years, and underwater cultural heritage managers should be part of the conversations not only for the opportunity to share their knowledge on underwater remains but also to decide which structures can become underwater cultural heritage due to any particular characteristics that can benefit both the knowledge of humankind and the environment. This will also provide a new way to deal with heritage: it will offer the opportunity to decide in the present what we want to remember about this century that is worth preserving for the future. Acknowledgements This research has been supported by the Honor Frost Foundation through the British Academy/Leverhulme Research Grants Scheme. The authors would like to thank Ole Varmer and Chris Underwood for their valuable comments on this article. 6 �Bibliography Baker, Michael. “Safety and Reliability of Decommissioning Offshore Structures.” In Decommissioning Offshore Structures, edited by David Gorman and Joyce Neilson, 57–78. Springer, 1998. BOEM. “Wakes Across the Gulf: Historic Sea Lanes and Shipwrecks in the Gulf of Mexico”. Technical Report, 2021. Available at: https://www.google.com/url?sa=i&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0CAIQw7AJahcKEwi4o6 CKn_fAhUAAAAAHQAAAAAQAw&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.boem.gov%2Fsites%2Fdefault%2Ffiles%2Fdocuments%2Fr egions%2Fgulf-mexico-ocs-region%2Foffice-environment%2FTR-BOEM-2021057.pdf&psig=AOvVaw2IM4rH96eLjFMlai4u161h&ust=1684237318775965 Brown, Steve, “Poetics and politics: Bikini Atoll and World Heritage Listing,” in Transcending the Culture–Nature Divide in Cultural Heritage: Views from the Asia–Pacific region, edited by Sally Brockwell, Sue OʹConnor and Denis Byrne, 2013, ANU Press. 35-52. https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt5hgz2n.7 Choi, Jun-Ki, Daniel Kelley, Sean Murphy, and Dillip Thangamani. “Economic and environmental perspectives of end-oflife ship management.” Resources, Conservation and Recycling 107 (2016): 82–91. Delgado, James P., Misadventures of a Civil War Submarine: Iron, Guns, and Pearls. Texas A&M University Press, 2012. Delgado, James P., Deborah E. Marx, Kyle Lent, Joseph Grinnan and Alexander DeCaro, Clotilda: The History and Archaeology of the Last Slave Ship. University of Alabama Press, 2022. Drake Well Museum (n.d.). Available at: https://www.drakewell.org/ Forte, Angelo. “Legal Aspects of Decommissioning Offshore Structures.” In Decommissioning Offshore Structures, edited by David Gorman and Joyce Neilson, 125–140. Springer, 1998. Fowler, Ashley, Anne‐Mette Jørgensen, Jon C. Svendsen, Peter I. Macreadie, Daniel OB Jones, Arjen R. Boon, David J. Booth et al. “Environmental benefits of leaving offshore infrastructure in the ocean.” Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment 16, no. 10 (2018): 571–578. IHS Markit. Offshore decommissioning study report. London: IHS Markit, 2016. Jordan, Grant, and Bennie. Lynn. “Political Aspects of Decommissioning.” In Decommissioning Offshore Structures, edited by David Gorman and Joyce Neilson, 141–160. Springer, 1998. NGO Shipwrecking Platform (n.d.). Available at: https://shipbreakingplatform.org/tag/beaching/ Perez-Alvaro, Elena. Underwater Cultural Heritage. Ethical concepts and practical challenges. London: Routledge. 2019. Ross, David. Opportunities and Uses of the Ocean. New York: Springer, 1978. Simpson, Graeme. “The Environmental Management Aspects of Decommissioning Offshore Structures.” In Decommissioning Offshore Structures, edited by David Gorman and Joyce Neilson, 1–22. Springer, 1998. Smith, Gillian, and Graeme Lamont. “Decommissioning of Offshore Wind Installations–What we can Learn.” Offshore Wind Energy (2017): 6–8. Smyth, Katie, Nikki Christie, Daryl Burdon, Jonathan P. Atkins, Richard Barnes, and Michael Elliott. “Renewables-toreefs?–Decommissioning options for the offshore wind power industry.” Marine pollution bulletin 90, no. 1–2 (2015): 247– 258. Symons, Lisa J., James P., Delgado, Deborah Marx, and Erika Seibert), “A Means to Streamline Historic and Cultural Resources Consultation and Compliance for Pollution Assessment and Recovery Activities on Shipwrecks,” International Oil Spill Conference Proceedings, Volume 2014, Issue 1: 2024-2036. Turner, Philip J. , Sophie Cannon, Sarah DeLand, James P. Delgado, David Eltis, Patrick N. Halpin, Michael I. Kanu, Charlotte S. Sussman, Ole Varmer, and Cindy L. Van Dover), “Memorializing the Middle Passage on the Atlantic Seabed in Areas Beyond National Jurisdiction,” Marine Policy, CXXII, December 2020. 7 � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource 2023 Session 13: Major Threats to Underwater Cultural Heritage Subject The topic of the resource Papers presented at Session 13 of the 2023 Asia Pacific Regional Conference on Underwater Cultural Heritage Description An account of the resource Session 13 papers Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Asia Pacific Regional Conference on Underwater Cultural Heritage Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available The Museum of Underwater Archaeology Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource November 2023 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource Asia Pacific Regional Conference on Underwater Cultural Heritage Language A language of the resource English Rights Holder A person or organization owning or managing rights over the resource. Asia Pacific Regional Conference on Underwater Cultural Heritage Document A resource containing textual data. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre text. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Decommissioning Offshore Structures: A Threat or an Underwater Cultural Heritage Opportunity Description An account of the resource This article focuses on the possibility of recycling, removing, and leaving on-site offshore structures, such as wind turbines and oil platforms. It also looks at the environmental consequences of these structures recycling mostly carried out in southern Asian countries with limited work and environmental regulations. The construction of some of these offshore structures does not provide ‘end-of-life’ considerations, so, if left in situ they will become underwater cultural heritage in the future. This article will look at the benefits of a collaboration between offshore and maritime industries and underwater cultural heritage practitioners. It will also highlight the importance of including as underwater cultural heritage less “attractive” sites which may not be as popular, but can still be of importance. If forgotten, we may lose a significant part of humanity’s history. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Elena Perez-Alvaro James Delgado Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available The Museum of Underwater Archaeology Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2023 Language A language of the resource English Bibliographic Citation A bibliographic reference for the resource. Recommended practice is to include sufficient bibliographic detail to identify the resource as unambiguously as possible. Perez-Alvaro, Elena and James Delgado. 2023. “Decommissioning Offshore Structures: A Threat or an Underwater Cultural Heritage Opportunity.” Edited by Jennifer Craig, Jay Mok, T. Kurt Knoerl and Ole Varmer. In Proceedings of Fifth Asia Pacific Regional Conference on Underwater Cultural Heritage: Gwangju, The Republic of Korea, November 13-18 2023. The Museum of Underwater Archaeology. URL: https://apconf.omeka.net/exhibits/show/apconfproceedings/item/1905 Asia-Pac Session 13 2023 https://apconf-much.org/proceedings/files/original/438948588b3d0742db8101ce16ddd264.pdf 559f917c0a6bfaf9372fea273209d6f4 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource 2021 Session 3: Sustainable Development of Underwater Cultural Heritage in the Asia‐Pacific Region Subject The topic of the resource Session 3 paper Description An account of the resource The archaeological community seems to acknowledge the touristic side of the underwater cultural heritage but only if is not incompatible with the protection and management of underwater cultural heritage. In fact, the 2001 UNESCO Convention on the Protection of the Underwater Cultural Heritage highlights the importance of public awareness and public enjoyment of the underwater cultural heritage. This is implicitly pointing out the necessity of a sustainable use of this heritage: it tries to balance the desire to conserve and protect versus the desire to exploit. However, while it has been accepted that the heritage needs to be available to all, its availability sometimes could threat its integrity: mass tourism can bring pollution, economic exploitation and mass transit. Sustainability means living in a way that do not endanger the life chances of people alive tomorrow by exhausting the earth’s resources and destroying its environment. In our case, it means enjoying the underwater cultural heritage today in a way that do not endanger it for tomorrow. However, underwater cultural heritage can be places to visit and learn, giving economic benefits to local communities. New options have to be developed for making underwater cultural heritage accessible to all since involving society is not only necessary but also a good way to preserve the underwater cultural heritage. This session seeks to find proposals where the management of underwater cultural heritage complies with a sustainable development: to provide education, protection and accessibility. The Asia‐Pacific Conference on Underwater Cultural Heritage is the perfect scenario to keep an open mind to attract new ideas where not only the preservation of the underwater heritage but also its enjoyment by all can become a reality: the sustainable use of underwater cultural heritage is possible. Session organiser: Dr Elena Perez‐Alvaro Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Asia Pacific Regional Conference on Underwater Cultural Heritage Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available The Museum of Underwater Archaeology Language A language of the resource English Rights Holder A person or organization owning or managing rights over the resource. Asia Pacific Regional Conference on Underwater Cultural Heritage Document A resource containing textual data. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre text. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Consulting companies as a bridge between maritime spatial planning and underwater cultural heritage stakeholders Description An account of the resource Port and harbour developments, marine wind farms or submarine pipelines and cables are all part of an increasing demand for ocean resources with consequences for the preservation of underwater cultural heritage: identifying and assessing potential impacts to minimise risks is essential. Consulting companies provide services for development of these maritime and marine infrastructures and they are the key link between the constructors constrain budget and time, and cultural heritage stakeholders who want to preserve as much as possible in the best conditions. This paper will offer the point of view of marine consultancies as advocates of underwater cultural heritage in the Marine Spatial Planning process. These companies have to potential to create synergies between different activities in the seas, protecting the environment but encouraging the investment. It offers new challenges and opportunities for the safeguarding of this heritage, protecting it but opening the door to businesses contribution and people willing to take a financial risk. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Elena Perez-Alvaro Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available The Museum of Underwater Archaeology Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource November 2021 Language A language of the resource English Rights Holder A person or organization owning or managing rights over the resource. Asia Pacific Regional Conference on Underwater Cultural Heritage Bibliographic Citation A bibliographic reference for the resource. Recommended practice is to include sufficient bibliographic detail to identify the resource as unambiguously as possible. Perez-Alvaro, Elena. 2021. “Consulting companies as a bridge between maritime spatial planning and underwater cultural heritage stakeholders.” Edited by Brian Fahy, Hans Van Tilburg, Bill Jeffery, T. Kurt Knoerl, and Riley Smith. In Proceedings of Fourth Asia Pacific Regional Conference on Underwater Cultural Heritage: Keelung,Taiwan, and Virtual, November 1-5, 2021. The Museum of Underwater Archaeology URL: https://apconf-much.org/proceedings/exhibits/show/apconf-muchproceedings/item/677 Asia-Pac Session 3 2021 https://apconf-much.org/proceedings/files/original/26ac59ff7503fcb9c6bd4d7ee84d336d.pdf 2653f9513523ff5df8dbfbe9e1d6b632 PDF Text Text Human remains on underwater cultural heritage: Ethics, values and law Elena Perez-Alvaro Ironbridge International Institute for Cultural Heritage College of Arts and Law University of Birmingham UK Email: exp140@bham.ac.uk Abstract All of the factors and complexities of the issues regarding the management of underwater cultural heritage reveal the narrow dependence between its management and the historical, sociological, cultural and traditional particularities of every country. Catastrophes creating shipwrecks frequently also cause deaths, ranging from single fatalities to disasters claiming hundreds of lives. However there is not a specific legislation dealing with the treatment of the human remains on shipwrecks. Nevertheless, the 2001 UNESCO Convention on the Protection of the Underwater Cultural Heritage includes in its definition the term human remains, which means that the same guidelines for the protection of the underwater cultural heritage preservation in situ for the public benefit - are also applicable to human remains. In this regards, this paper will justify that declaring shipwrecks as funerary monuments or underwater cemeteries in most cases attracts tourism, apart from the own meaning of these sacred places, and also complies with the 2001 UNESCO Convention principles. In addition, the possibility of the treatment of human remains as intangible heritage can lead to a new whole vision for its protection and management. Underwater cultural heritage can be not only monuments to the great journey or heroic combat, but also a tool to shape the collective memory. Underwater cultural heritage can act as a trigger for a set of emotions and memory narrative. Key words: Human remains, UCH, Submerged cemeteries, Watery graves, 2001 UNESCO Convention Introduction The management and protection of human remains as part of the underwater cultural heritage is a complex ethical issue – as it is in land archaeology - entangled with technical considerations for being underwater. And although human remains can be found at sites that are several hundred years old (Dromgoole, 2013), its preservation depends on different factors and environmental conditions. Different issues arise from the issue, which requires a lot of unpacking before offering possibilities. The establishment of the respect for the deceased or the development and education for the future faces complicated moral questions. One of the 1 �justifications of archaeologist and museum managers for the recovery and/or exhibition of human remains is the appeal to science and education, which raises other ethical issues. In addition, the definition of respectful treatment is different in different cultures. Problems with those who believe on live after death are also a complicated aspect on the management of human remains. The international community must establish clear rules about how to protect shipwrecks containing human remains. Different attitudes to underwater cultural heritage The current tendencies on the protection of underwater cultural heritage show differences in the protection between countries determined by aspects of culture, such as tradition, mentality or habit. States may also manage and protect their underwater cultural heritage to shape public memory through the memorial forms, sites, references and public rituals (Nora, 1996). As a result, the different countries develop their protection policies according to their system of collective values, which work as guides to decide what deserves to be preserved and how it has to be managed. As part of this heritage, shipwrecks can also represent different meanings for different people in different cultures, so their actions to enable preservation show a real complexity because of these differences. The complexity of the issue has led to similar complexities on the procedures to preserve. Since most of the Earth is covered with water, burial at sea has long been the accepted norm for mariners all over the world. Most of those burials are accidental as a consequence of a casualty. Says Delgado (2011): Despite years of shipwreck exploration as a maritime archaeologist and a decade as director of a maritime museum, Titanic was never high on my list of lost ships to visit. I'd never considered it an archaeological site, but rather an underwater museum and memorial. However, some authors are opposed to the treatment of shipwrecks as cemeteries (Bryant, 2001). This school of thought support its theories by three main assertions: It is argued that neither history nor the law treats shipwrecks, historic or otherwise, as protected underwater cemeteries, stating that the historic, social, scientific, and monetary value of historic shipwrecks dictates that they should not be treated as underwater cemeteries protected from salvage or recovery. This fact is well documented: neither history nor the law treats shipwrecks as protected underwater cemeteries. However, if as we will claim, human remains are underwater cultural heritage, they are protected and managed by the 2001 UNESCO Convention 2 �(Convention hereinafter), meaning that they have to be preserved in situ. According to the Convention, the use of these shipwrecks as underwater cemetery will make the history for future generations. It is also suggested (Bryant, 2001) that since underwater shipwrecks are unnatural and do not belong on the bottom of the sea -they belong at their home ports and intended destinations - neither do human remains belong on the bottom of the seas there. As a consequence, recovery is acceptable where circumstances permit: the reason being that while cemeteries are the intended resting places for the dead, shipwrecks are not, and because shipwrecks have other diverse values, they should not glibly be labelled as cemeteries and kept off-limits to salvors and others. Historic shipwrecks containing human remains deserve respect, although not so far as to treat them as underwater cemeteries that cannot be salvaged, Bryant concludes (2001). In this regard, it is open to debate that, while cemeteries are the intended resting place for the dead, shipwrecks are not. Throughout history, cemeteries have changed their context according to the circumstances: from churches - which are not meant to be cemeteries - to main squares in the village when there are mass deaths. Therefore, fatalities and deaths on board - of the now shipwrecks - has converted them into submerged cemeteries. Finally and more importantly, it seems that declaring shipwrecks as underwater cemeteries is generally the result of a need to enhance the cultural identity of a nation, region or group, something not well accepted in some circles, since it is highly selective in terms of what is portrayed as worthy of being remembered. In this sense, the topic of heritage as a tool to shape the collective memory has been well studied (Nora, 1996; Viejo-Rose, 2011). It seems true that heritage can become an evocative national symbol, acting as a trigger for a set of emotions and memory narrative. During a period of deciding what to preserve, efforts are made to shape public memory through memorial forms, sites, references and public rituals (ViejoRose, 2011). As a consequence, the heritage can be manipulated by the rulers to remember history in a different way. In the case of the shipwrecks, it is the idea of those who died for us, for their country. Legal approach The Convention defines underwater cultural heritage as: all traces of human existence having a cultural, historical or archaeological character which have been partially or totally under water, periodically or continuously, for at 3 �least 100 years such as: (i) sites, structures, buildings, artefacts and human remains, together with their archaeological and natural context; (ii) vessels, aircraft, other vehicles or any part thereof, their cargo or other contents, together with their archaeological and natural context; and (iii) objects of prehistoric character. This definition appears to represent that human remains are underwater cultural heritage, regardless of whether they are contained on a shipwreck or just lying at the bottom of the sea. In other words, human remains under water for at least 100 years are objects according to the Convention. As a consequence, every article and every rule of the Convention is applicable to human remains. Any direct citation to human remains in the rest of the text is redundant and expresses differences with the rest of the cultural heritage discriminating against - or emphasizing - human remains with respect to sites, structures, buildings, artefacts, vessels or other vehicles lying at the bottom of the sea. The term is used in two more articles. Human remains are also explicitly named in Article 2.9: States Parties shall ensure that proper respect is given to all human remains located in maritime waters. This article suggests a respect in any case or activity when dealing with human remains. The last mention of human remains is found in the Annex, Rule 5, where it is specified that activities directed at underwater cultural heritage shall avoid the unnecessary disturbance of human remains or venerated sites. This last reference deals with human remains contained within the other underwater cultural heritage, for instance a shipwreck. However, none of these articles directly states the best conditions to manage human remains, for instance in cases where the shipwreck is going to be excavated and/or raised. The Convention does not describe whether the bodies should be recovered with the ship and reburied, or should remain at the bottom of the sea. It is also not stated if the human remains should repatriated to their country of origin if the shipwreck is, for instance, salvaged by a private company. The Convention mainstays are: 1. Preservation of underwater cultural heritage for the benefit of humanity; 2. In situ preservation of underwater cultural heritage; 3. Prohibition of commercial exploitation of the underwater cultural heritage; 4. International cooperation in the preservation of underwater cultural heritage. 4 �In this regard, if we finally agree that human remains are in fact underwater cultural heritage, the same terms are applied. As a consequence, human remains have to be preserved for the benefit of humanity, they cannot be commercially exploited and an international cooperation must occur in order to preserve them. The Convention also establishes what to do with the underwater cultural heritage – and therefore with human remains - once it has been discovered (Article 18. 4): A State Party which has seized underwater cultural heritage shall ensure that its disposition be for the public benefit, taking into account the need for conservation and research [...] the need for public access, exhibition and education [...] in respect of the underwater cultural heritage concerned. Leaving aside the economic definition of public benefit, it is worth to remember that families may need a place to pray, to honour the victims of the shipwrecks. This demand is part of the public benefit. Article 18.4 is complemented in the Annex of the Convention consisting on Rules concerning activities directed at underwater cultural heritage: Rule 1. The protection of underwater cultural heritage through in situ preservation shall be considered as the first option […]. Rule 4. Activities directed at underwater cultural heritage must use non-destructive techniques and survey methods in preference to recovery of objects. If excavation or recovery is necessary for the purpose of scientific studies or for the ultimate protection of the underwater cultural heritage, the methods and techniques used must be as non-destructive as possible and contribute to the preservation of the remains. As a consequence, none of the instruments dealing with the protection of underwater cultural heritage deal specifically with human remains and how to manage them, but since human remains are underwater cultural heritage, the same rules are applicable; the most important direction is the preservation in situ for the benefit of the public. However, since the two articles refer to human remains in specific terms, the Convention sows doubts about its specific distinction and consequently, about the specific treatment. Other instruments, like the Vermillion Accord on Human Remains (1989) that remarks respectful treatment and consideration of indigenous communities and the Tamaki Makau-rau Accord on the Display of Human Remains and Sacred Objects (2005) that establishes ethics on the display of human remains are not specific to human remains on shipwrecks, although they can be combined. 5 �Watery graves The community is relaying its history, its past and in some way its future in the hands of archaeologists. How those elements are going to be managed and manipulated will build the history of an individual, a community or a nation Archaeologists have also to respond to an ethic of cultural dignity, which may include obtaining permission from the descendants of the human remains. The biologically and culturally related groups must have a substantial role in the decisions and the treatment of their ascendants. In this sense, there has been an apparent growth of the notion of shipwrecks as graveyards and memorials, some with traditional notions of burial at sea, and requiring recognition and respect beyond the protection of the archaeological remains (human and otherwise) contained within. Among the reasons of such interest, it is necessary to consider both the controversial aspect of this option and the effectiveness showed in some countries. In the first of these two aspects, the controversial one, a group of elements are combined: from the purely technical to those of ethical or human nature. In this sense, the recovery of human remains (sometimes with a high number of civil or military victims) is a source of controversy on the way that both the bodies and the shipwrecks containing them should be managed. With these controversies, there are conflicts without a clear solution, where some opinions are opposed to the treatment of human remains while other ones are related to the need of the historians and public opinion to understand the facts, and through these gain knowledge of history. Bryant (2001) remarks that it is widely acknowledged that gaining knowledge about the past requires examining ruins of earlier cultures, including human skeletal remains. On the other side to those technical matters, the ethical background includes some other facts of a particular complexity which determines the actions of the management and the protection of certain countries. Wight (2009) observes that the issue of remembering tragedy and oppression in heritage sites is at the centre of an academic debate surrounding “truth” or “authentic” narratives. Truth, he continues, depends on a number of ethical codes codified through cultural background, and religious or secular beliefs. Among these matters, the cultural ones dominate the picture: The consideration of death, where there are usually superstitious perceptions, and a general attitude to the “respect to the dead” and their remains. 6 �- The religious considerations with transcendental character, and its impetus in life after death. - The consideration of memories as an instrument to continue life after death. - The consideration of the past as an example (positive or negative) for the present and for the future, associated with the collective memory of the human being. One particular way of this consideration is the one who use the memories as a tool for the benefit of the social cohesion, to create or strength a national, regional, local… identity, as explained before. The concepts of monument and hero acquire, in those contexts, an emotive capacity which can strengthen the goals and the actions for the protection of the heritage (Nora, 1996). Shipwrecks as cemeteries It is necessary for the international community to leave an open option to preserve shipwrecks with human remains as watery graves. That option will depend both on the collective interest to remember the tragedy, and the weight of the attitude to consider the shipwrecks as a sanctuary for the dead people. Anyway, the diversity of countries of origin and the nationalities of the victims on some shipwrecks reduces the consideration of an emotional answer to an attack or national identity, although there is still an attitude of collective awareness of the realities of our times. War graves have a different consideration (Williams, 2005). They have a particular legal status which establishes a degree of protection from disturbance: it is a mixture of salvage principles and legislation relating to military remains. The difficulty comes when those human remains are something that some want to forget, rather than remember. Watery graves as memorials Part of our identity is based in our cultural property identity. This is the feeling of a group of people, or of an individual which are influenced by their culture. As Renfrew and Bahn (2008: 546) remembered, ethnicity today is a living force, and heritage is an important tool in the definition of national identity. Declaring a shipwreck as a cemetery can be considered as part of this enhancement of the national identity. Memorials are highly selective in terms of what they portray as worthy of being remembered. 7 �Watery graves attracting black tourism Management of shipwrecks as watery graves can lead to dark tourism, attracting tourists to a place with special meaning to the friends and relatives of the people who lost their lives in the disaster. Tragedies can be then exploited, not only to convey political messages, but also for commercial gain (Sharpley, 2009). Dark tourism is defined as a different type of tourist attraction. It is the act of travel and visitation to sites of death, disaster and the seemingly macabre (Stone, 2009). It has to be analyzed if declaring shipwrecks as watery graves will attract this kind of tourism. Conclusion All the factors and the complexities of the issues on the management of the underwater cultural heritage reveal the narrow dependence between its management and the historical, sociological, cultural and traditional particularities of every country. The 2001 UNESCO Convention includes the term human remains within its definition of underwater cultural heritage. As a consequence, the same principles applicable to the underwater cultural heritage – no commercial exploitation, preservation in situ, preservation for the benefit of the mankind and international cooperation- are also valid for human remains. Preservation in situ of human remains means the treatment of shipwrecks as underwater cemeteries. The recovery of those remains would contravene the Convention. On the other hand, benefits from the study of human remains would come to an end if some of those human remains are not recovered and/or studied. The complexity arises from the choice of those remains that will be disturbed. Declaring shipwrecks as funerary monuments or underwater cemeteries can be attractive not only because of the controversy, but also for the effectiveness of preservation. Delgado confirmed (2004: 56) that “the best and largest museum of all lies in the bottom of the sea”. It can also be the largest cemetery of the world. Acknowledgements The present work benefited from the input of J. Carman, C. Forrest, M. AznarGomez, and M. Manders, who provided valuable comments to the writing of the research summarised here. 8 �References Bryant, C. R., 2001. The archaeological duty of care: the legal, professional, and cultural struggle over salvaging historic shipwrecks. Albany Law Review, Fall 2001: 97-145. Delgado, J., 2004. Adventures of a Sea Hunter: In Search of Famous Shipwrecks. Douglas and McIntyre, Vancouver. Delgado, J., 2011. Diving on the Titanic. Archaeology, Vol. 54 (1) (January/February): 34-41. Dromgoole, S., 2013. Underwater cultural heritage and international law. Cambridge University Press, New York. Nora, P., 1996. Realms of Memory. (English Translation: L. Kritzman), Columbia University Press, New York. Renfrew, C., and Bahn, P., 2008. Archaeology: theories, methods and practice. Thames & Hudson, London. Sharpley, R., 2009. Dark Tourism and Political Ideology: Towards a Governance Model. In R. Sharpley and P. R. Stone (Eds.), The darker side of travel: The Theory and Practice of Dark Tourism, Channel View Publications, Bristol: 145-163. Stone, P. R., 2009. Dark Tourism: Morality and New Moral Spaces. In R. Sharpley and P. R. Stone (Eds.), The darker side of travel: The Theory and Practice of Dark Tourism, Channel View Publications, Bristol: 56-72. Tamaki Makau-rau Accord on the Display of Human Remains and Sacred Objects, 2005. From http://www.worldarchaeologicalcongress.org/site/about_ethi.php. Vermillion Accord on Human Remains, from http://www.worldarchaeologicalcongress.org/site/about_ethi.php. Viejo-Rose, D., 2011. Reconstructing Spain: cultural heritage and memory after civil war. Sussex Academic Press, Sussex. Wight, C., 2009. Contested National Tragedies: An Ethical Dimension. In R. Sharpley and P. R. Stone (Eds.), The darker side of travel: The Theory and Practice of Dark Tourism, Channel View Publications, Bristol: 129-144. UNESCO., 2001 Convention on the Protection of the Underwater Cultural Heritage, available at: http://www.unesco.org/new/en/culture/themes/underwater-cultural- heritage/2001-convention/official-text/ Williams, M., 2005. “War graves” and Salvage: Murky Waters? International Maritime Law, June/July 2000, Vol. 7 (5): 151-158. 9 �Biography Elena Perez-Alvaro is a PhD candidate in Underwater Cultural Heritage at University of Birmingham, UK. She holds an undergraduate degree in History of Art and MSc in Heritage and Museum Studies at University of Portsmouth and LLM in Maritime Law at University of London. She has studied a Masters Research Degree at University of Cambridge, being the title of her dissertation ‘Management of Underwater Cultural Heritage in Spain’. Her work on ‘Unconsidered Threats to Underwater Cultural Heritage: Laying Submarine Cables or Experiments on Particle Physics using underwater cultural heritage: the dilemma’ has been published in Rosetta Journal. 10 � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Session 1: UNESCO Convention on the Protection of the Underwater Cultural Heritage and International Cooperation Description An account of the resource The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) is a specialized agency of the UN. It has 195 Member States. The UNESCO Convention on the Protection of the Underwater Cultural Heritage adopted in 2001 is the international community’s response to the destruction of submerged archaeological sites by treasure hunters and industrial activities. It reflects the growing recognition of the need to ensure the same protection to underwater heritage as that already accorded to land-based heritage. It provides legal protection, enables States Parties to adopt common approaches to preservation and provides effective professional guidelines on underwater cultural heritage. The Convention and its Annex have been officially endorsed by most professional associations of underwater archaeologists. The 2001 Convention entered into force on 2 January 2009. Today it has been ratified by 44 States. The objectives of the UNESCO session are to: * Enhance understanding of the 2001 Convention in terms of its background, its benefits, its ethics and its potentials for contributing to sustainable development, * Identify a strategy for enhancing capacity in the protection and research of underwater cultural heritage, * Identify a way forward for increasing ratifications of the 2001 Convention by the countries in the region. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Etienne Clement Document A resource containing textual data. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre text. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Human remains on underwater cultural heritage: Ethics, values and law Description An account of the resource All of the factors and complexities of the issues regarding the management of underwater cultural heritage reveal the narrow dependence between its management and the historical, sociological, cultural and traditional particularities of every country. Catastrophes creating shipwrecks frequently also cause deaths, ranging from single fatalities to disasters claiming hundreds of lives. However there is not a specific legislation dealing with the treatment of the human remains on shipwrecks. Nevertheless, the 2001 UNESCO Convention on the Protection of the Underwater Cultural Heritage includes in its definition the term human remains, which means that the same guidelines for the protection of the underwater cultural heritage preservation in situ for the public benefit are also applicable to human remains. In this regards, this paper will justify that declaring shipwrecks as funerary monuments or underwater cemeteries in most cases attracts tourism, apart from the own meaning of these sacred places, and also complies with the 2001 UNESCO Convention principles. In addition, the possibility of the treatment of human remains as intangible heritage can lead to a new whole vision for its protection and management. Underwater cultural heritage can be not only monuments to the great journey or heroic combat, but also a tool to shape the collective memory. Underwater cultural heritage can act as a trigger for a set of emotions and memory narrative. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Elena Perez-Alvaro, in Van Tilburg, H., Tripati, S., Walker Vadillo, V., Fahy, B., and Kimura, J. (eds.) Asia-Pac Session 1 2014 https://apconf-much.org/proceedings/files/original/5abe8a9fc6641a23b44ed423fd12b318.pdf 12fe2f90b2e3cae444f488c88072a9b6 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource 2021 Session 12: Iberian Seafaring and Ship Construction in Asia-Pacific Subject The topic of the resource Session 12 paper Description An account of the resource Abstract During the early 16th century several expeditions departed from Spain and Mexico to explore the Pacific Ocean and to find a new trade route with Asia. One of these expeditions, the Magellan-Elcano expedition, led to the first circumnavigation of the world in 1519-22 which was followed by the Loaysa expedition in 1525. Almost at the same time, oceangoing ships built in the shipyards of the Pacific coast of New Spain sailed directly to the Moluccas and the Philippines. However, it was not until 1565 when Urdaneta discovered a maritime route which allowed these vessels to return from Asia to North America across the Pacific Ocean. For the first time in history, Asia and Europe became connected via America on a regular maritime route known as the Manila-Acapulco galleon which contributed to the development of the first global economy. For centuries these vessels became the single mode of transportation for goods but also ideas and technological knowledge between different continents and cultures. This session focuses on the evolution of Iberian seafaring and examines the development of ship construction and port facilities in the Pacific Ocean during the 16th and 17th centuries based on historical and archaeological sources. Iberian shipping relied on the interaction with local and regional trading networks established on the Asian and Pacific coasts creating a mutual dependence. The vessels built in Asia and America for the Pacific Ocean navigation were the result of a technological, material, and cultural mixture involving local and foreign communities. Therefore, archaeological and historical sources are crucial to explore the development of the Iberian seafaring and shipbuilding in the Pacific region and provide important information regarding Asia-Pacific societies, and their interaction with Iberian seafarers and settlers. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Asia Pacific Regional Conference on Underwater Cultural Heritage Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available The Museum of Underwater Archaeology Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource November 2021 Language A language of the resource English Rights Holder A person or organization owning or managing rights over the resource. Asia Pacific Regional Conference on Underwater Cultural Heritage Document A resource containing textual data. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre text. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Spanish early modern colonies in the Austronesian context: San Salvador de Quelang, Heping Dao, Keelung, Taiwan Description An account of the resource Since 2011 we have investigated the site of the Spanish colony of San Salvador de Quelang, founded in 1626 on Heping Dao, a then small island off the coast of Keelung, in northern Taiwan. The colony was established as an extension of the Spanish post of Manila and the Philippines, with clear strategic and political goals that involve many different agents and processes at the level of the entire Asia-Pacific region. The Spanish held in San Salvador for 16 years, when they were expelled by the Dutch who then took over the colonial space until 1668. After this European spell, the colony and Taiwan fell under the control of the Qing government. We have aimed to reconstruct the lifeways of the local peoples inhabiting the place, the Basai, before, during and after the European colonial occupation. The Basai were an Austronesian population of the Iron Age –in Taiwanese terminology- when the Spanish arrived in Keelung. Their history can potentially be observed throughout prehistory in a long span of several millennia. Contemporary European and Chinese documents that describe social practices of the Basai are also available. By understanding the indigenous prior to the Spanish presence we can evaluate the impact that the colonists had on the locals, as well as the role that the Austronesian may have played in the colonial process, including their long-distance contact with peoples from the continent. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource María Cruz Berrocal Elena Serrano Herrero Tsang Chenghwa Ellen Hsieh Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available The Museum of Underwater Archaeology Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource November 2021 Language A language of the resource English Rights Holder A person or organization owning or managing rights over the resource. Asia Pacific Regional Conference on Underwater Cultural Heritage Bibliographic Citation A bibliographic reference for the resource. Recommended practice is to include sufficient bibliographic detail to identify the resource as unambiguously as possible. Berrocal, María Cruz, Elena Serrano Herrero, Tsang Chenghwa, and Ellen Hsieh. 2021. “Spanish early modern colonies in the Austronesian context: San Salvador de Quelang, Heping Dao, Keelung, Taiwan.” Edited by Brian Fahy, Hans Van Tilburg, Bill Jeffery, T. Kurt Knoerl, and Riley Smith. In Proceedings of Fourth Asia Pacific Regional Conference on Underwater Cultural Heritage: Keelung,Taiwan, and Virtual, November 1-5, 2021. The Museum of Underwater Archaeology URL:https://apconf-much.org/proceedings/exhibits/show/apconf-muchproceedings/item/696 Asia-Pac Session 12 2021 https://apconf-much.org/proceedings/files/original/127f4e9676ecc066f564fa683dca32da.pdf 4263c4ec4942ac6ab6327a6125ff0ed8 PDF Text Text The Sacred and Cultural Maritime Sites of Fiji-An Inventory in the Making Elia Nakoro Archaeology Department The Fiji Museum Thurston Gardens Suva, Fiji Email: rocksfel@yahoo.com.au Abstract The Fiji Museum Archaeology Department, since 2015, has begun inventorying the different underwater and maritime sites in Fiji. Ratification of the 2001 UNESCO Convention on the Protection of the Underwater Cultural Heritage and review of the legislation on the Preservation of Objects of Archaeological and Palaeontological Interest Act (Chapter 264) has had little fruition due to limitations in manpower and resources. The Fiji Museum has however taken first steps towards realizing the amendment of the legislation by developing and drafting an overarching policy for the institution. The Fiji Museum continues to deliberate on the draft policy encompassing all aspects of its services, which includes underwater and maritime cultural heritage sites, to ensure that Fiji’s cultural heritage is protected. This paper will elaborate on the different types of underwater/maritime cultural heritage sites in Fiji and the inventory process of documenting and creating a database, including challenges and opportunities. It will highlight the importance of the database in assisting the Fiji Museum in its work to raise awareness and provide advice to Government and relevant authorities in the respect, preservation and protection of these submerged historical treasures. The paper will also highlight the various agencies with common goals to protect underwater cultural sites and discuss the importance of interagency collaboration. Key words: Cultural heritage, maritime, preservation, and protection �Introduction The Fiji Islands The island nation of Fiji encompasses over 300 volcanic islands. About 100 of these are inhabited, rich in biodiversity and cultural heritage. Fiji is located in the tropics of the southern hemisphere and has a total land area of approximately 18,300km2 that covers the region positioned between a latitude of 12°N-21°S and longitude 176°E-178°W (Nakoro, 2014). Fig 1: Map of the Fiji Islands. (Fiji Museum) The Republic of the Fiji Islands is a multicultural nation with a tapestry of cultural traditions of Indigenous Fijians (iTaukei), Indians, Europeans, Chinese and other minority cultures. While all the various cultures can be linked to the underwater heritage of the nation through shipwrecks, the �iTaukei people are custodians to a special, sacred and mysterious connection to the land, which includes sacred underwater or maritime sites. In capturing the fascinating connection between the sacred maritime sites and its owners, the Archaeology Department embarked on a digitization project in 2015 to document details pertaining to the sites and protection under legislative powers1 entrusted to the Fiji Museum. Utilizing the basic Microsoft Access tool, the department developed its maritime sites database. The Fiji Museum The Fiji Museum is located in a historically significant site within an old fortified village that was called Suva. During the expansion of the city, the inhabitants of the old settlement were relocated across the harbor. Today, the area known as the Thurston Gardens complements the Fiji Museum in the background. Currently under the jurisdiction of the City Council, the Thurston Gardens have great potential for a facelift with plans in the pipelines for this to eventuate before the end of 2017. Adjacent to the Gardens is the historic and newly refurbished Albert Park where the monoplane Southern Cross, piloted by Sir Charles Kingsford Smith made a safe landing on its first transpacific flight from Hawaii to Fiji en route to Australia in 1928. Similarly the northwestern fringe contains the remnants of the World War II underground tunnels and the Allied forces military headquarters, which now accommodates the residence of the British High Commission and Fiji’s presidential palace and compound �Fig. 2: Location of Fiji Museum. (Google Earth) Since its establishment in 1904, the Fiji Museum has been governed by two legislations - the Fiji Museum Act and the Preservation of Objects of Archaeological and Palaeontological Interest (POAPI) Act, enacted in 1940. The latter, which is administered by the Archaeology department of the institution, is the legal instrument covering the protection of cultural heritage sites in Fiji. This legislation has a more generalized definition of cultural heritage where underwater cultural heritage sites such as shipwrecks, planes, sunken villages, islands and the likes are not specifically mentioned but in the clause which reads ‘…or any objects of archaeological, anthropological, ethnological, prehistoric and historic significance....’ covers any form of culturally significant sites and objects without distinction of their location. As such the Fiji Museum, Archaeology Department with limited manpower and resources tries to cover all aspects of Fijian cultural heritage. In early 2017, the institution underwent a change in leadership involving the designation of a new Director and Board of Trustees members. The �driving force behind changes to the Museums’ priorities, new leadership identified gaps in legislation of the safety of cultural heritage sites in Fiji, as a target area to be addressed. The Board endorsed the review of the legislation and the Archaeology Department is currently in the process of forming the relevant committees to spearhead this process. These committees will be tasked with development of policies to strengthen the role of the department and its legislation. The Convention on Underwater Cultural Heritage has also been highlighted as an ideal approach in the near future. The Archaeology Department Cabinet endorsed the legislation that governs the work of the Archaeology Department in 1940, however the Archaeology unit of the Fiji Museum was not formally established until over 5 decades later in1995. Since its establishment, the Archaeology Department has been involved in the identification, documentation and protection of terrestrial archaeological and cultural heritage sites of the nation. This includes the protection of ancestral old village sites, sacred grounds, cemeteries, caves, or any prehistoric or historic significant places discovered from the impacts of development. Today, the Archaeology unit at the Fiji Museum is comprised of four staff members who look after the entire Fijian group of islands. At present the team, focuses much of its efforts on terrestrial cultural heritage sites meeting an influx of community requests to survey, record, document and protect places of cultural heritage significance against the ever-looming threats of development. Most of these issues are related to a complicated land acquisition system that was developed in the early stages of Fiji’s colonial administrative system. �The Archeology department plays a crucial role in the implementation of Archaeological Impact Assessments (AIA) in line with Environment Impact Assessments (EIA) for national development projects such as tourism development, infrastructural development, agriculture, and other land use development. In addition to this, the department is engaged in national projects for climate change mitigation and reducing carbon emissions through carbon trade with the Reduce Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation and Foster Conservation (REDD+) and the Mangrove Ecosystem Conservation and Livelihood (MESCAL) projects. This includes the setting up of new forest reserves where a rapid survey is warranted. The Archaeology team’s role in these projects is to identify cultural heritage sites within the earmarked forest boundaries and to examine and record the ancient forest system - in particular, evidence of the impacts of human activities on natural systems. The Archaeology Department is mandated under the same legislation to issue archaeological research permits for local and international researchers and field schools. During the course of the research, the officers of the Archaeology Department are required to be present providing advice to researchers, conducting the various traditional protocols on their behalf and ensuring that proper procedures itemized in the research permits are carried out. This paper will explore and discuss the different types of underwater cultural heritage sites in Fiji with focus on traditional maritime sites. It will highlight the inventory process of documentation and the creation of a database to assist in the preservation and protection of these submerged historical treasures. �The paper will also feature the various institutions or agencies with mutual goals to protect underwater cultural sites and discuss the importance of stakeholder collaboration. Maritime Cultural Sites Database Fiji is one of the more developed nations in the Pacific region making it particularly vulnerable to the destruction and loss of significant cultural features related to the history and identity of its people. With limited resources and manpower, the Archaeology Department is at the forefront of defending the nation’s cultural heritage from such threats. At present the department manages six databases, as listed below: 1. Terrestrial Cultural Heritage Sites 2. Traditional maritime cultural heritage sites 3. Shipwrecks 4. Excavated Archaeological Research Materials 5. Lapita Sites 6. Oral History recordings Excavated archaeological research materials that are kept in the department’s storage facility and oral history recordings are managed using the Microsoft Access platform. Terrestrial cultural sites, maritime heritage sites, shipwrecks, and Lapita sites, on the other hand are maintained using the Geographic Information System (GIS) program ArcGIS. Since the information has spatial attributes, the ArcGIS program is an appropriate tool for such systematic recording, information analysis, mapping, and data sharing within national authorities on the preservation of cultural heritage sites. After each survey, the Archaeology team members marked each site visited using a Global Positioning System (GPS). The GPS data is later �transcribed for report compilation and corresponds to the national register or database. The database is rather a useful tool in decision-making, advising authorities dealing with national development on the existence of cultural heritage sites in earmarked project areas. Given that a small team looks after the various functions of the Archaeology unit for the whole country, managing four separate databases on ArcGIS was a challenging responsibility that fell solely on the Head of Department. A combination of limited human resources, a lack of capacity in team members and no centralized system contributed to a constant backlog in updating the database. Ideally, the vast information database managed by the Archeology department needed to be maintain on a single database as all databases shared common coordinates from the various sites surveyed, the only difference being in the key thematic areas. In June (2017), the Fiji Museum successfully installed a file server for a centralized mechanism available to all the museum departments. This was a great boost to the institution, as each department ceased to have separate databases of the same contents to manage. Soon after the installation of the server infrastructure, the Archaeology Department embarked on a weeklong staff capacity building in the areas of field mapping with the use of conventional survey methods, the use of GPS, GIS and database management including Microsoft Access. This enabled all team members to update the database in a shared folder as and when needed, freeing up time for departmental heads to carry out their supervisory functions improving productivity greatly. Merging the 4 data sets was advantageous and crucial to improve database management efficiency while ensuring that all four themes of �terrestrial sites, maritime sites, shipwrecks and Lapita sites are equally represented in the Archaeology departments work. Legislation Pertaining to the Protection of Underwater Cultural Heritage Sites in Fiji Currently, the overarching legislation (POAPI Act) makes feeble reference to the safeguarding of underwater or maritime sites. However, it is encouraging that there are agencies that share similar goals to protect Fiji’s cultural heritage including underwater sites. In the past year, these agencies have taken a stance on the activities within Fiji’s Exclusive Economic Zone propelled by a nationwide implementation of marine protected areas towards the sustainable monitoring and use of marine resources as food supply and transport. The global concerns of mitigating climate change and the different treaties and conventions that Fiji is a signatory to have elevated these agencies to take action. Below is a list of these agencies, which include Government, civil society organizations and regional institutions now in the forefront of maintaining marine protected areas. Government Agencies 1. Maritime Safety Authority of Fiji (MSAF) MSAF is responsible for the registering, regulations and safety of shipping services and shipping routes in Fiji. As a member state of the International Maritime Organization (IMO), the United Nations specialized agency with responsibility for the safety and security of shipping and the prevention of marine pollution by ships, Fiji is trying to secure the international recognition for the protection of two significant sea areas recognized for ecological, socio-economic, cultural and scientific reasons which may be vulnerable to damage by international maritime activities (www.imo.org, �16th July 2017) under the Particularly Sensitive Sea Area (PSSA) special protection action by IMO. Fiji has several maritime ports of entries and two of these have been identified as meeting the criteria for PSSA. This further enhances the local regulations in the protection of maritime cultural significant areas. The two sites, the Beqa Passage and the Vuda Passage, may have shipwrecks and other sensitive cultural components necessary for submission to have the passages protected. The Archaeology Department is a new member of the taskforce for the PSSA. On the 14th of July, 2017, the taskforce held its second meeting since its establishment and many stakeholders attended. The PSSA taskforce is in the early stages of information gathering and report submissions. 2. The Department of Environment (DOE) Mandated to protect the environment and regulate development procedures in the country, the DOE, under the Environment Management Act (EMA-2005) is vital in the protection of coastal cultural sites. In July 2017, the Fiji Museum was consulted to assist in the protection of three World War II lookouts constructed out at sea threatened by a development application for the construction of a jetty. 3. The Fijian Naval Unit under Republic of the Fiji Military Forces The Fiji Navy is responsible for the maritime needs in boarder control such as watching over Fiji’s exclusive economic zone ad organizing task and rescue missions. Similar to any naval force, the Fiji Navy is equipped with a dive team that recently (2017) spearheaded a diving expedition to assess the discovery of seven chests in Fiji waters. The chests were believed to contain explosives and arms. Unofficial information stated that �these would have been WWII materials-mine. The Fiji Museum continues to work closely with the Fiji Police to confirm the contents of the chests. 4. iTaukei Affairs Board (iTAB) i-Taukei Affairs Board is the Government arm that looks after any matters concerning indigenous Fijians or i-Taukeis. With crucial mandates for safeguarding Fiji’s indigenous culture and traditions, it is vital that iTAB is aware of the significance of the maritime sites as all the sacred sites are of iTaukei origins. iTAB has access to legal expertise to be able to assist with the protection of intangible cultural heritage. Non-Governmental Organizations 5. International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) The IUCN is heavily engaged in conservation works in the Pacific and in Fiji, with a regional office in Suva, Fiji. The organization has signed a Memorandum of Agreement with the Fiji Government to provide advice and review legal frameworks, policies, legislations and conventions in safeguarding and protecting Fiji’s environment. In 2016, IUCN included the cultural heritage sites (an area that is usually overlooked) in its list of marine protected areas and consulted the Fiji Museum for information and advice (H. Wendt and N. Yakub, personal communication, July 12, 2017). Regional Institutions 6. The Secretariat of the Pacific Community (SPC) Similar to the role of the IUCN, SPC has the expertise and equipment for underwater surveys. SPC also has a unit that looks after the cultural affairs of the Pacific region and is aware of the significance of underwater cultural heritage. �While these institutions and agencies have a shared vision to promote the protection of Fiji’s underwater cultural heritage sites, there is a need to inform these stakeholders on the role and functions of the Fiji Museum in safeguarding UCH. The Archaeology Department needs to lobby and promote the significance of UCH and the need for collaboration between all stakeholders involved. Sacred Maritime Sites Fiji is filled with many traditional or cultural sites and practices which cannot be explained with scientific knowledge. Attempts by Mr. David Attenborough, a BBC documentary reporter in the early 60s were futile as he tried to explain some of the practices he came across such as the fire walkers of Beqa, the turtle calling in Koro, the fishes in the lake on Vanua Balavu. Below is captured some of the fascinating and respected maritime sites that the Archaeology Department has already listed in its database: �Fig. 1: Map showing the names of places mentioned in the Sacred Maritime Sites section. 1. The sacred fishes of Naigani Island On the eastern coast of mainland Viti Levu, the paramount chief of Verata, Rokomoutu holds and can be identified with the traditional title 2of the ‘Ratu.’ It was said that when the first Fijian’s left Lake Tanganyika in Africa for Fiji, the daughter of Lutunasobasoba (the chieftain of the group) asked to take with her some pet fish. In Fiji, the fishes (Sardinella fijiense) known as Daniva or sardines, were put in the Verata waters by the princess. So catching the fish with a spear or using of fine nets or fishing lines were prohibited. Normally the Trevallies would swim after the Daniva and push them close to land and during this pursuit there would be a lot of splashing �noise on the beach. People would normally go to the beach and pick the Daniva. When the fishes were in Verata, Rokomoutu, one day tried to use his spear on them. He threw his spear, missed them and it landed on the rocks. He slipped, hitting his knee on the rock (today, the mark of his spear and his knee on the rocks are still evident). Furious, he said to the fishes, “go down to Naigani (an island about 37.5 kilometers north of Verata as shown on the map) where I will not see or hear you, and when I want to drink boiled water, I will come down for you” (oral history recording with Naigani village elder, 2004) The people of Naigani would catch the Trevallies as they come close to land with the sardines. Similar to the Norse folklore of Thor and his goats, when consuming the Trevallies, the bones are not allowed to be broken. The bones are then carefully placed back in the water where it comes back to life. According to the people of Naigani, one can easily tell the difference between a newly formed Trevally from an old one and this is a traditional practice that is still carried out today. 2. The sacred passage between the island of Ovalau and Naigani One of the oral accounts collected from Naigani was that there were two cousins named Laginiwasa and Rakavono. One day, the cousins ate the young germinating coconut palms, which is called ‘vara’ in the iTaukei dialect. The vara had been planted by Laginiwasa’s father Ratu (chief) Matanabalavu. Hearing Ratu Matanabalavu coming, Rakavono fled but not before he was seen by Ratu Matanabalavu. Encountering Laginiwasa and enraged at his behavior, Ratu Matanabalavu banished him from the island. Laginiwasa took his double hull canoe (drua) and fled to the island of Moturiki which is south of Ovalau Island (Ramoli and Nunn, 2001). �A few days later Ratu Matanabalavu confronted Rakavono and told him that he must leave the island as Laginiwasa had done. Lacking his own drua, Rakavono swam to Rukuruku on the northwestern coast of Ovalau island (Ramoli and Nunn, 2001). According to the oral narrative, the path when Rakavono swam, is a warm passage about 8 kilometers in distance. Several fishermen from both Naigani and Ovalau have swam the passage without any swimming aid stating that the warmth provided buoyancy and any cold water encountered during the swim meant that the path where Rakavono swam was not being followed. 3. The sacred stone of Matuku Matuku is an island located in the Lau group (southeast of Viti Levu). It was also the only island in the Lau group that was not conquered by the Tongan army led by the Tongan prince, Enele Ma’afu’out’itonga (around the 1840s). On the eastern end of the island, there is a stone which is submerged during high tides. The stone, reddish in color is almost rectangular in form and about 1 meter x 1.5 meters in dimension can be found amidst beach cobbles near Levukaidaku village. This reddish stone displays traditional relationships between Levukaidaku and the neighbouring village, Raviravi. According to the oral accounts collected from both villages, giant tidal waves occur instantaneously when a villager from Raviravi walks past the stone. Similarly, another reddish stone which is smaller in size is located about 20 meters west of the previous one happens to cause giant tidal waves when it is disrespected through speech or action. �The giant waves can only be calmed when a clan member from Levukaidaku performs a ritual by covering the red stones with leaves from a particular tree. 4. The sacred mosquito crevice, Matacaucau Along the eastern coast of the main island, Viti Levu, there is a mysterious maritime site. This is a crevice at the foot of a cliff at high water mark. The crevice is called ‘Qara ni namu.’ Qara is opening and namu is mosquito. The Qara ni namu contains mythical history. It is said that this was a gift by Rokomoutu who was the leader of one of the migrating party from the hills of Nakauvadra. While sailing across towards Verata Ucunivanua, strong winds tore his sails and he decided to seek shelter close to land to mend his sails. As a gift for the people that helped him, Rokomoutu presented a parcel containing mosquitoes, which was supposed to be his present to the Turaga na Ratu from Verata to awake him every morning. This was instead gifted to the people of Matacaucau for their assistance. The villagers of Matacaucau relayed stories that anyone who disturbed the Qara ni namu would suffer dire consequences in that mosquitoes would swarm the village resistant to repellents and sleeping nets. It was also relayed that during ceremonial festivities young men would purposefully stir the Qara ni namu to Conclusion Pacific Islanders are deeply connected with the ocean. The ocean as the source of life, the medium for transportation between islands and sustaining livelihoods, much of the Pacific’s history is related to the use of the ocean where some of it are now underwater. �Similarly, the Fiji Islands is littered with historical sites related to maritime heritage. This paper offers a glimpse of the diversity of distribution of maritime heritage sites, most of which are connected through myths and legends and have unexplainable occurrences. However, these mysterious heritage sites are considered in the iTaukei language as the ‘sau ni vanua’ or the power of the land and its people. On the contrary, current climatic conditions should also be considered. Fiji is experiencing the threats of global sea level rise where a total of 64 coastal villages are earmarked for relocation. More than 3 villages have already been relocated under the National Climate Change Fund and the Archaeology Department is mapping a proactive strategic plan on the potential of documenting all community related heritage in affected villages which will add to the list of underwater heritage in the future. Given that human and financial resources are lacking, the Fiji Museum will slowly proceed and continue to document underwater cultural heritage sites while working in collaboration with other government agencies and NGOs in creating awareness on the significance and protection of UCH. Endnotes 1 Preservation of Objects of Paleontological Interest Act: (Laws of Fiji, Chapter 264) 2 Title, name by which a person or group is identified, the (usually honorific) name by which a kin-group is known or, less commonly, their plant, fish or other animal (Gatty, 2009). References Gatty R, 2009, Fijian-English Dictionary with notes on Fijian culture and natural history, Publication under the Auspices of the Southeast Asia program Cornel University, New York. �Government of Fiji, 1940. Chapter 264: Preservation of Objects of Archaeological and Palaeontological Interest in Laws of Fiji. Government Printery, Suva, Fiji Islands, Pp 2 Nakoro E. 2014. The Fiji Museum’s Efforts Towards the Preservation of Underwater Cultural Heritage Sites in Fiji, Session 3, Underwater Cultural Heritage, Museums, and Sustainable Development, the Proceedings of 2014 Asia-Pacific Regional Conference on Underwater Cultural Heritage, May 12-16, Honolulu, Hawaii. Pp 99-112. Nakoro E. and Matararaba S. 2014, Archaeological Assessment Report: Report prepared for the Vanua of Waimaro Levulevu specifically for the villages of Verata Ucunivanua and Matacaucau, Fiji Museum, Suva, Fiji. Ramoli A. and Nunn P. 2001, Naigani Island and its historical connections with Ovalau and Moturiki Islands: convergences between legend and fact, https://www.researchgate.net/publication/247769057, accessed on the 16th July, 2017. BBC, 1960, The People of Paradise, video, episodes 1 & 2 � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource 2017 Session 1: Underwater and Maritime Archaeology and Capacity Building in the Pacific Islands Description An account of the resource The Pacific Ocean contains a wealth of underwater cultural heritage (UCH) spanning human history from the Stone Age to the atomic age. Since the first Pacific UCH Workshop held in Solomon Islands in 2009, the Pacific island nations have been progressing in the implementation of the Pacific UCH Programme by awareness raising, research and capacity building activities through inter-disciplinary cooperation and promoting synergy with the Pacific World Heritage and Intangible Cultural Heritage Programmes. Notable progresses include, among others, the SIDS Accelerated Modalities of Action (SAMOA) Outcome Document of the 3rd UN International Cooperation on Small Island Developing States (SIDS) (Samoa, 2014) that contains references to the importance of UCH for sustainable development of SIDS and SIDS ratification of the UNESCO Convention for the Protection of the Underwater Cultural Heritage (2001), as well as the enhanced cooperation between universities in the Pacific islands and professional training institutions through UNESCO University Twinning and Networking Programme (UNITWIN) for Underwater Archaeology. With this as its background, the session “Underwater and maritime archaeology and capacity building in the Pacific Islands” will be held with the aims to: i) share information on recent progress in awareness raising, research and capacity building activities in underwater and maritime archaeology in the Pacific Islands, ii) identify priority actions, iii) foster partnership for regional and international cooperation. The session especially welcomes presentations focusing on the protection and management of UCH belonging to indigenous community shared UCH in the Pacific, addressing challenges and opportunities facing Pacific SIDS in the implementation of the Pacific UCH Programme and the promotion of the UCH Convention, presenting good practice in ensuring the effective engagement of Pacific island countries and community in UCH management for their sustainable development, and proposing collaborative projects in this area. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Akatsuki Takahashi UNESCO Office for the Pacific States, Samoa Andrew Viduka, Maritime and Commonwealth Heritage, Australian Government, Nicolas Bigourdan, Western Australian Museum Document A resource containing textual data. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre text. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource The Sacred and Cultural Maritime Sites of Fiji-An Inventory in the Making Description An account of the resource The Fiji Museum Archaeology Department, since 2015, has begun inventorying the different underwater and maritime sites in Fiji. Ratification of the 2001 UNESCO Convention on the Protection of the Underwater Cultural Heritage and review of the legislation on the Preservation of Objects of Archaeological and Palaeontological Interest Act (Chapter 264) has had little fruition due to limitations in manpower and resources. The Fiji Museum has however taken first steps towards realizing the amendment of the legislation by developing and drafting an overarching policy for the institution. The Fiji Museum continues to deliberate on the draft policy encompassing all aspects of its services, which includes underwater and maritime cultural heritage sites, to ensure that Fiji’s cultural heritage is protected. This paper will elaborate on the different types of underwater/maritime cultural heritage sites in Fiji and the inventory process of documenting and creating a database, including challenges and opportunities. It will highlight the importance of the database in assisting the Fiji Museum in its work to raise awareness and provide advice to Government and relevant authorities in the respect, preservation and protection of these submerged historical treasures. The paper will also highlight the various agencies with common goals to protect underwater cultural sites and discuss the importance of interagency collaboration. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Elia Nakoro Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available The Museum of Underwater Archaeology Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 11/24/2017 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource Elia Nakoro Asia-Pac Session 1 2017 https://apconf-much.org/proceedings/files/original/99361f1d51fe7353d45bd169f8f4e481.pdf 04584b2117e43c41b2579bf5ecdbab4f PDF Text Text The Fiji Museum’s efforts towards the Preservation of Underwater Cultural Heritage Sites in Fiji Elia Nakoro History Archaeology Department, The Fiji Museum, Thurston Gardens, Suva Fiji Email: rocksfel@yahoo.com.au Abstract Fiji’s 300 isles are enclosed within a total sea area of about 1,260,000km2 of its Exclusive Economic Zone and to date very little work has been carried out on underwater and maritime archaeology. Resource materials documented by the Archaeology Department of the Fiji Museum have identified more than 500 shipwrecks, a great number of which were wrecked less than 50 years ago. The establishment of an Underwater Unit at the Fiji Museum is needed to safeguard the nation’s underwater historic sites and raise awareness towards understanding the untold sunken mysteries that connect Fiji to the world; however there are several issues that need to be addressed in order for this Unit to be established and run effectively. This paper discusses the need for further capacity building and training in Underwater Cultural Heritage (UCH) studies to successfully document, survey and protect Fiji’s underwater cultural sites. Furthermore, the area of developing policy papers, funding proposals and the documentation of findings will also require special attention to sustain UCH projects. Alike the other developing countries, the paper highlights the daunting challenges that face the Fiji Museum including the lack of human resources, equipment and above all insufficient funding to carry out this much needed work. Key words: Capacity building, Collaboration, Levuka Town, Sacred, Underwater Cultural Heritage, World Heritage Site Introduction The Fiji Islands The Republic of the Fiji Islands encompasses a group of over 300 volcanic island landmasses, of which over 100 islands are inhabited. Fiji is located in the tropics of the southern hemisphere and has a total land area of approximately 18,300km 2 that covers the region positioned between a latitude of 12N-21°S and longitude 176°E-178°W (Fig. 1). Fiji has two main islands namely, Viti Levu and Vanua Levu and approximately 80% of the population resides on these two islands the majority of which is located in rural areas and about 40% of the people dwelling in urban areas. 83% percent of land is owned by indigenous Fijians while nine percent is State owned and eight percent is 1 �Freehold land (Ministry of Information, Communications and Media Relations, 2006). The Fiji group is situated in tropical waters, surrounded by coral reefs and considerable variation in the physical island formations histories enclosed within a total sea area of about 1,260,000km2 of its Exclusive Economic Zone where more than 500 shipwrecks have been documented, a great number of which were wrecked less than 50 years ago. Fig. 1 Map of the Fiji Islands. (Nakoro, 2014) A Brief History Fiji has a colorful past of tradition and culture. The first settlements in Fiji were constructed by voyaging traders and settlers from the west about 3500 years ago. Voyaging and settlements in this period were associated with the manufacturing of Lapita ware of distinctive intricate dentate stamped motifs. Western influence of European traders began in 1800 as Oliver Slater, a survivor of the ship Argo, which was wrecked near Oneata, an island in the Lau group discovered sandalwood at Bua 2 �Bay on Vanua Levu. This was followed by sandalwood traders, beachcombers, whalers, beche-de-mer traders and missionaries (Williams, 1858). However, in the early seventeen and eighteenth century, European explorers began to discover the Fiji group of islands and other Pacific Islands in the exploration of the South Seas. Islands were charted from aboard ships with the fear of local hostility. During the sandalwood trade, beachcombers were welcomed by Fijian chiefs as they brought with them new ideas on life and knowledge of western technology including firearms. These were shipwrecked sailors, runaway convicts from New South Wales and ship deserters as they escape harsh conditions on board, low wages and severe punishments (Donnelly et al., 1994). In the early 19th century, exploration journals and missionary records described hostility and settlement fortifications (Donnelly et al., 1994). In the pre-history context there are no written records however there were social structures that defined roles in a community together with visual evidence and oral stories being passed down from one generation to another or through ceremonies and rituals. In order to preserve and hold such cultural wealth of the nation in trust for all generations, the Fiji Museum was established. The Fiji Museum The idea to have a museum was first mooted in 1904 where donations from the first colonial administrations made up the initial collection exhibited for public display. Today, over a century since its operations began, the institution showcases and stores treasured cultural artifacts and memories of the past and is responsible for the collection, documentation, exhibition, conservation and preservation of Fiji’s significant cultural artifacts and sites of local and national heritage. The Fiji Museum holds a remarkable collection, which includes archaeological material dating back to about 3,500 years ago and cultural objects representing Fiji’s indigenous inhabitants as well as other communities that have settled in the island group over the last century, items from its Pacific Island neighbors, and from around the world. The significance of the institution is in documenting historical events, conducting research, education, public outreach and keeping cultures and history alive. In addition to focusing on local cultural material - the institution also aims to strengthen a regional study and the collection of cultural materials of the South Pacific. 3 �Organizational Structure Governed by the Fiji Museum Act1 and the Preservation of Objects of Archaeological and Palaeontogical Interest Act2, the institution is a statutory body that comes under a Board of Trustees. The Fiji Museum has six professional departments namely the Conservation department, Education department, Collections department, Pre-history Archaeology department, Historical Archaeology department and Exhibitions department. These departments form the core functions in the maintenance and operations of the institution however these departments function with little funds. The Archaeology Department The Archaeology unit of the Fiji Museum was established in 1995 and consists of two sections: (1) Pre-history Archaeology Department and (2) the History Archaeology Department. The legislation that governs the work of the department was endorsed by cabinet in 1940. Fiji’s pre-history period was confirmed from results of an excavation in 2003 that was collaboratively undertaken by the Archaeology Department and the University of the South Pacific, Fiji to be approximately 3050 years BP/1100 BC to European contact within the group. The first Europeans to have engagements with native Fijians were European explorers where Abel Janzoon Tasman visited Fiji waters in 1643. However during the sandalwood trading around 1800 Europeans heavily interacted with the natives in the purchase of sandalwood. The findings of the earliest settlement southwest of Fiji predate most oral narratives known by Fijians today. The History Archaeology Department deals with all the events and history from the European contact period to the present day. The Department of History Archaeology's role in the museum is to identify sites, conduct research, and provide protection for historic sites, which also includes maritime sites. In this capacity, the department carries out legislative review, identification and recording of all historical sites, and cultural heritage management related activities. The department also assists in the enforcement of the legislation "the Preservation of Objects of Archaeological and Palaeontological Interest Act" around the Fiji Islands. The History Archaeology 4 �Department maintains a register of all historical sites. This is an ongoing project through which a comprehensive database of all known historical sites is being compiled. The department is interested in documenting as many heritage buildings in Fiji, especially in Suva, Levuka and the sugar producing towns where many colonial buildings are situated and also documenting significant cultural heritage sites not to mention the recording of all maritime and underwater cultural heritage sites. The Archaeology Department’s Legal Frame Work The Fiji Museum’s Archaeology Departments administers the legislation under the Laws of Fiji: Chapter 264, which is the Preservation of objects of Archaeological and Palaeontological Interest Act. Under the legislation it requires the Archaeology Department to promote and preserve all objects that include any erection (buildings), memorial (monuments), tumulus (burial mounds), cairn (pile of stones), place of interment (cemetery), pit-dwelling, trench (war ditches), fortification stone walls, irrigation works, mounds, excavation (for research purposes), caves, rock drawings, paintings, sculpture, inscription (carving of words on rocks etc), monolith (sacred rocks), or any remains thereof, fossil remains of man or animals or plants or any bed or beds containing such fossil remains thereof, or any object (or any remains thereof) which is or are of archaeological, anthropological, ethnological, prehistoric, or historic interest, and includes - (a) the site on which such object of archaeological or palaeontological interest was discovered or exists; (b) such portion of land adjoining the said site as may be required for fencing or covering in or otherwise preserving such object of archaeological or palaeontological interest; and (c) the means of access to and convenient inspection of such object of archaeological or palaeontological interest. Underwater Cultural Heritage in Fiji Some work has been accomplished in the last few years in an effort to establish the foundation of collating data on underwater cultural heritage focusing on shipwrecks and implement protection procedures on these sites. However, the importance of being aware of the existence of these heritage sites forms the basis of taking such a bold step. The Historical Archaeology Department to date has managed to compile a national shipwreck database (Fig. 2) that maps out a plan of action on work that needs to be undertaken to safeguard these valuable and historic heritages. This research has been 5 �carried out over several years by looking at archival literature records, archived newspapers and maritime records of the country. As a result, research showed that Fiji has a total of more than five hundred (500) documented shipwrecks on its territorial waters. These include both old and new shipwrecks within the last 10 years. As illustrated in the image above, the database is maintained using Microsoft Office Access and it will continue to be modified in the future to also capture images of the ship before and after it wrecked once a full-scale research has been conducted. Since Fiji is lacking legislative cover on underwater cultural heritage, the Fiji Government (Department of National Heritage, Culture and Arts under the Ministry of Education), is giving its full support and backing to oversee and assist in the process of producing legal documents. As we convene, there is a team responsible for drafting and reviewing the current legislation Chapter 264: Preservation of Objects of Archaeological and Paleontological Interest to include specifically the safeguarding of underwater and maritime cultural heritage. Fig. 2 A glimpse of Fiji's shipwreck database. (Fiji Museum, 2014) 6 �Underwater surveys A single underwater survey has been undertaken in Fiji to date by a diving team from the Australian National Maritime Museum (Fig. 3). The team comprised of Mr. Kieran Hosty, Mr. Paul Hundley and a staff member of the Archaeology Department of the Fiji Museum who conducted surveys of the harbor of Levuka Town for the nomination of the town as a World Heritage Site. The township of Levuka on the island of Ovalau is located on the east of the main island Viti Levu and is home to British colonial building structures. It is a living town and the only one in the Pacific. Several English merchant schooners are submerged in the harbor of Levuka. For this purpose, the underwater survey was carried out to assist in the nomination document, identifying the core zone for the town and the buffer boundary as a world heritage requirement and also provide protection on these sunken vessels. The Levuka World Heritage local committee was able to draft a new legislation that included the protection of shipwrecked vessels in the Levuka Bay. The Fiji Government has since completed the submission and the nomination of the township of Levuka to the World Heritage Committee and the town has been inscribed as a World Heritage cultural site, however the effort to include the shipwrecks as a component of the nomination was later withdrawn with legitimate reasons for management of the nominated properties. Types of Maritime Cultural Heritage sites in Fiji In addition to shipwrecks, there are other underwater and maritime cultural sites from myths and historical accounts to be considered such as the use of traditional canoes, sunken double hull canoes, sunken settlements, fish traps and sharpening stones that represent ideal potential projects in the exploration and preservation of underwater cultural heritage. The types of maritime cultural heritage sites in Fiji are summarized below: 1. Sacred Canoes or Waqa Tabu (Drua) In the 1800s, Europeans were amazed with the majestic naval fleet that the native Fijians were using. These boats known as the waqa drua (double hull) or waqa tabu (sacred) are said to be the biggest of all the types of canoes used in Fiji. It was also sacred as its construction was fitted for high chiefs. Generally acknowledged as the 7 �finest two-hulled sailing vessels, the largest of these required 50 men to navigate and in war might use up to 100 –but it could transport 300 or more warriors– and was claimed to have sailed faster with the wind than the European vessels that visited the Fiji Islands in those days. The canoe was structurally unlike other sea-going canoes, although it sailed by similar techniques, the hulls being made from fitted planks, not dugouts. Moreover the deck was a platform resting across the two canoes. To all who shared in the activities and the rituals of the construction and the launching this was indeed a sacred canoe. Every feature had its particular function and the craft were superbly handled by none better than the Bauan navy (Tippett, 1968). There is great traditional ceremonial sacrifice attached with the construction of a new drua, which begins from the initial process of tree felling which is associated with songs, chanting while hauling the fallen tree for the keel and feasting once hauling. It is said that it could take five to seven years for the drua construction. At the launching of the new drua, many lives were lost as the drua slid on the sea of blood of slaves who served as rollers under its massive hulls (Tippett, 1968). There are also claims that these majestic drua lay buried under one of the major river system of Fiji, the Rewa River or Wailevu. This river system was an active pathway during the reign of Ratu Seru Cakobau, the self proclaimed king of Fiji. Ratu Cakobau originally was from the island of Bau, a small island off the eastern coast of the main island and was constantly engaged in war in his effort to unify the islands under his authority. 2. Fish Traps (Impounding enclosures of stone-Moka) Fish traps are found in most parts of the islands and most field tours on Viti Levu have revealed the remains of these enclosures occur along the western coast and the islands off the mainland. This method of trapping fish is by means of low walls of boulders set out in horseshoe form between tide marks and is one of the most primitive methods of fishing, maybe the earliest of the efforts of early man to devise a mechanical arrangement for the automatic capture of fishes (Hornel, 1940). Very little has been documented about the construction and the use of these stonewalls however it has been generally described by early researchers. 3. Sunken Islands and Settlements 8 �Vuniivilevu and Burotu are two islands in Fiji that allegedly ‘vanished’ (Fig. 4). Vuniivilevu is located in the Lomaiviti group, east of Viti Levu and it was believed to have disappeared as a result of collapse of part of the Viti Levu insular shelf between 1200 and 1600 AD (Nunn et al., 2005). According to informants and oral narratives collected by Nunn et al., (2005) Vuniivilevu was inhabited and residents dispersed to neighboring islands and other parts of Fiji. The island was believed to have disappeared as punishment for the excessive cannibalism and disobedience to the Gods according to other accounts. While some parts of the province of Tailevu have close attachments and rituals connected to the sea area where Vuniivilevu used to be, the area is said to be sacred where most seafarers pay great respect when passing through. In 2012, Valentin Bayer, a German tourist on Caqalai Island discovered a piece of pottery while snorkeling northwest of Caqalai Island. The remnant pottery was the neck of a clay water container, depicted in (Fig. 5). The finding may provide evidence that Vuniivilevu was initially an inhabited island before submerging. Burotu is another example of a mythical island, which appears occasionally in the Lau group specifically near the island of Matuku. It is also sometimes referred to as Burotukula (kula is red) because of the reported redness of many things on the island. Villagers of Levukaidaku claim that at times they do come across burnt-out fishing torches of coconut fronds believed to have been used on the island of Burotukula the night before. There are also occasions where red feathers were washed ashore. There is also a myth that says the island is occupied by beautiful women. A number of oral traditions were collected firsthand from Matuku Island in December 2003. 9 �Fig. 4 Locations of sunken islands and settlement. (Nakoro, 2014) Fig. 5 A Chief’s Kitchen, “At Home in Fiji”. (Cumming, 1888) The key aspect of the story of Burotu that distinguishes it from many others involving vanished islands in the Pacific is that Burotu allegedly reappears and disappears periodically (Nunn et al., 2005). The last sighting of Burotu was reported by a school Head Teacher, Mr. Emitai Vakacegu in 2003 at 6 am. The school teacher and his 10 �students witnessed the 30 minutes glimpse of the island over the horizon of Levukaidaku village. Other sightings of Burotu were reported in 1933, 1948, 1953, 1980-83, 1993, and 1995 (Nunn et al., 2005). In 2011, villagers from a community in the Province of Tailevu recovered pottery sherds from Moon Reef five kilometers off the eastern coast of Viti Levu. Moon reef is crescent shaped where tourists go for snorkeling and to watch dolphins and villagers believe that Moon Reef used to be an island. Similarly, in the Lomaiviti (central Fiji) group, a former Fiji Museum Archaeology staff, Mr. Kolinio Moce describes a sunken settlement more than five kilometers on the reef off Nukuloa village on Gau Island. According to Mr. Moce the settlement contains pillars and several whole clay pots that have become overridden with corals and algae over the years. Limitations in the Fiji context Over the past years the museum has struggled in its efforts to safeguard and preserve Fijian cultural material. While the institute has huge potential for improvements, its endeavors are limited and hindered by a lack of funding. The frequent changes in Governments have impacted the operations of the Fiji Museum as grants received vary, often dwindling. The current regime provided the museum with an annual grant of $230,000 used mainly to cover the operational costs such as staff salaries. Additional costs- such as field expedition expenses -are covered through community sponsorship or via proceeds collected from visitors to the museum, which comprise an average of about 21,000 local visitors (school students being the majority) and between 9,00012,000 tourists annually. In recent times, the department has been overwhelmed with the great influx of local interests from traditional land owning units. The rate of development has accelerated recently and a number of sacred sites have been decimated as a result. The work required to run an effective Underwater Unit is hindered by a lack of skilled staff and the Fiji Museum is barely managing to achieve goals in the vocation to protect and monitor Fiji’s national tangible cultural heritage at present. While Fiji has been represented in two foundation courses that were organised by UNESCO Bangkok, the capacity and facilities required for training including storage, lab equipment and diving gears are lacking and unlikely to happen without financial support from outside donors. To date the existing database has been constructed using 11 �secondary information and reconnaissance surveys to confirm the existence of shipwrecks and pinpoint their exact locations have not been undertaken. A big threat to underwater cultural heritage are the booming scrap metal industries that pay good money for scrap metal that can be sourced from just about anywhere. Underwater treasures are accessible only to those who have the resources to obtain it- from fishermen to sports/leisure divers and as there are no records to begin with and Fiji’s legal framework does not have specific provisions for the preservation of maritime sites and underwater shipwrecks – potential cultural sites are at great risk of being lost. The Way Forward Fiji has ratified two UNESCO Conventions on culture and heritage and is currently in the process of preparing the ratification of the Convention of the Protection and Promotion of the Diversity of Cultural Expressions. The Fiji government is also concerned with the state and protection of Fiji’s underwater cultural heritage sites and is also supporting the need to deliberate on the 2001 Convention as soon as possible, with discussions earmarked for 2015. Networking and the involvement of key stakeholders at the local, regional and international level is necessary for this undertaking. For example, the Applied Geosciences and Technology Division (SOPAC) conducts marine geophysics surveys within the Pacific region and the Historical Archaeology Department has begun networking through dialogue to promote future collaboration once the underwater unit is successfully established. There is also a need for assistance in the form of awareness and capacity building at local and regional levels. Relevant experts from UNESCO and within the realm of the UCH fraternity are needed to provide guidance through the provisions in the convention and all local stakeholders are required to be a part of this process. Workshops need to be developed for policy makers to design the legal framework that will best capture the preservation of UCH in Fiji without neglecting the management aspect of the whole process. It is also vital to have awareness workshops taken to grass root levels. The communities will play a vital role in the success of preserving the nation’s cultural heritage therefore needs to be properly informed and be aware of the importance of preserving our heritage, whether it is underwater or on land. 12 �Conclusion Maritime sites are important to communities in that they are sacred and tied closely to cultural identities. These undocumented sites in Fiji waters hold vast amounts of information and offer enormous potential in the field of maritime and underwater cultural heritage research. Not only would this provide greater understanding of the great tales of adventure behind shipwrecks, the callous ceremonial rituals attached with the construction of a sacred canoe or the events that took place before an island or settlement vanished, it also provides the basis for safeguarding the remains of the past that now underwater. Safeguarding and preserving underwater cultural heritage is vital to maintaining connectivity between Fiji and the Pacific and the world. It is important that, in order to achieve measurable and positive outcomes in safeguarding these valuable assets, Fiji has all its policies and legislation structures grounded on a solid platform. The nomination of Levuka Town as a World Heritage Site for example took more than a decade of work and research before it was eventually listed in 2014. This process, however lengthy, has provided valuable lessons on the various procedures to follow when the time comes for Fiji to ratify the 2001 convention. Essential components such as community awareness, informing government agencies and non-government stakeholders will all be part and parcel of the process of formulating and implementing appropriate legislation, establishing an underwater unit that will work towards preserving these untold and forgotten treasures. Acknowledgements The author is thankful to the Fiji Museum management and to the Department of National Heritage, Culture and Arts for their continued support in recognizing the need to protect Fiji’s underwater and maritime cultural heritage sites. Endnote 1Fiji Museum Act (Laws of Fiji, Chapter 263). 2Preservation of Objects of Paleontological Interest Act: (Laws of Fiji, Chapter 264). References Cumming, G., 1888. At Home in Fiji. Sixth Edition, William Blackwood and Sons, Edinburgh, London. Donnelly, T., 1994. A History and Geography of Fiji, Fiji in the Pacific. Fourth Edition, John Wiley and Sons Australia Ltd, Australia: 11-19. 13 �Hornell, J., 1940. Report on the Fisheries of Fiji. F. W. Smith, Government Printer, Suva, Fiji: 63-64. Hosty, K., and Hundley, P., 2001. Maritime Archaeological Investigation off the Port of Levuka, Island of Ovalau, Fiji. Australian National Maritime Museum, Sydney NSW Australia. Kleinschmidt, T., 1877. Theodor Kleinschmidt’s Notes on the Hill Tribes of Viti Levu, 1877-1878. Domodomo, Fiji Museum, Suva, Fiji. Kumar, R., 2005. Geology, climate and landscape of the PABITRA Wet-Zone Transect, Viti LevuIsland, Fiji. Pacific Science, Vol. 59: 141-157. Preservation of Objects of Archaeological and Palaeontological Interest in Laws of Fiji. Chapter 264, Government of Fiji, 1940. Government Printery, Suva, Fiji Islands: 2. 2006. Fiji Today 2004/2005. Ministry of Information, Communications and Media Relations. Fiji Embassy, Washington DC. Nunn, P., Geraghty, P., Nakoro, E., Nasila, A., and Tukidia, S., 2005. Vuniivilevu and Burotu: The Geography, Ethnography, and Hazard Implications of Vanished Islands in Fiji. People and Culture in Oceania, Vol. 21: 88-102. Nuttall P., Ledua, K., Newell, A., Vunaki, P., and Philips, C., 2012. The Drua Files: a Report on the Collection and Recording of Cultural knowledge of Drua and Associated Culture. University of the South Pacific and the Fiji Islands Voyaging Society, Suva, Fiji. Seeman, B., 1973 Viti: An Account of a Government Mission to the Vitian or Fijian Islands 1860-1861. Dawsons of Pall Mall, Folkestone and London. Tippett, R. A., 1968. Fijian Material Culture: A Study of Cultural Context, Function and Change. Bernice P. Bishop Museum Bulletin No. 232, Bishop Museum Press, Honolulu, Hawaii. Williams, T., 1858. Fiji and the Fijians: The Islands and their Inhabitants. Vol. 1, George Stringer Rowe, William Nichols, London. Biography Elia Nakoro is the Head of the History Archaeology Department at the Fiji Museum responsible for identifying, surveying, mapping, researching and providing for the protection of the maritime and historic sites of Fiji. Having worked at the Fiji Museum and on cultural heritage projects for close to a decade, Elia has vast experience in 14 �conducting desktop overviews, archaeological field assessments, archaeological monitoring programs, and salvaging excavations for the identification and protection of terrestrial cultural heritage sites as a national pre-development process and as part of a biodiversity surveys for conserving Fiji’s forests. In the foreseeable future, Mr. Nakoro hopes to be involved in establishing an Underwater Cultural Heritage Unit for Fiji towards identifying and safeguarding Fiji’s underwater and maritime sites. 15 � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Session 3: Underwater Cultural Heritage, Museums, and Sustainable Development Subject The topic of the resource Video Interview with Dr. Bill Jeffery on Sessions 3 and 11 with links to the papers presented in Session 3. Description An account of the resource Underwater cultural heritage holds a vast potential for sustainable development. It is a very interesting and attractive form of heritage, appreciated by the public. Underwater cultural heritage opens tourism opportunities. Worldwide, national authorities create dive trails to foster diving tourism economies. This is of special importance for States bordering the ocean, in particular Small Island Developing States (SIDS), which can greatly enhance their tourist attractiveness through the valorization of submerged archaeological sites. The investment in museums on underwater archaeology, dive trails and other forms of access for the public promise a beneficial and lasting return. Studies show that every USD invested in heritage increases the economic activity around the site by a factor between 1.2 to 8, depending on the significance of the site and the form of its valorization by museums and individual access. This is in particular to be noted as raise in employment and gain (hotels, food sales, transport benefit, guides), raise of cultural and educational levels in a region and improved consideration of heritage and local pride. Concerned forms of tourism in the case of underwater cultural heritage are cultural, dive and cruise tourism. New approaches and valid alternatives to commercial exploitation of sites are under consideration in order to finance underwater archaeological research and sustainable management of underwater cultural heritage sites, which include; i) dive club guardianship sites, ii) paid and controlled public visits of archaeological work, iii) evaluation of cultural development needs, iv) tour and exhibition opportunities, v) film and book rights in planning archaeological excavations. The objectives of the session are to: • Enhance understanding of the contribution of underwater cultural heritage to sustainable development; • Identify and promote good practice; • Foster partnership for regional and international cooperation. Document A resource containing textual data. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre text. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource The Fiji Museum's efforts towards the Preservation of Underwater Cultural Heritage Sites in Fiji Description An account of the resource Fiji’s 300 isles are enclosed within a total sea area of about 1,260,000km2 of its Exclusive Economic Zone and to date very little work has been carried out on underwater and maritime archaeology. Resource materials documented by the Archaeology Department of the Fiji Museum have identified more than 500 shipwrecks, a great number of which were wrecked less than 50 years ago. The establishment of an Underwater Unit at the Fiji Museum is needed to safeguard the nation’s underwater historic sites and raise awareness towards understanding the untold sunken mysteries that connect Fiji to the world; however there are several issues that need to be addressed in order for this Unit to be established and run effectively. This paper discusses the need for further capacity building and training in Underwater Cultural Heritage (UCH) studies to successfully document, survey and protect Fiji’s underwater cultural sites. Furthermore, the area of developing policy papers, funding proposals and the documentation of findings will also require special attention to sustain UCH projects. Alike the other developing countries, the paper highlights the daunting challenges that face the Fiji Museum including the lack of human resources, equipment and above all insufficient funding to carry out this much needed work. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Elia Nakoro, in Van Tilburg, H., Tripati, S., Walker Vadillo, V., Fahy, B., and Kimura, J. (eds.) Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 5/13/2014 Asia-Pac Session 3 2014