Our world’s ocean environments are in crisis and even more so the sunken relics of our common marine heritage. The increasing worldwide pollution of our air, water and land are all having without doubt a negative influence not only on the natural marine environment but also on our underwater cultural heritage sites. But these influences proceed relatively slow compared to damages inflicted by purely profit oriented companies and individuals. Unlike land based destruction of cultural artifacts, there is another great threat developing for some time and it is mostly hidden from the public eye – the looting and pillaging of shipwrecks and other cultural sites underwater.

More than a third of the World’s cultural heritage lies unexplored on the seabed. It provides a huge untapped knowledge base and possible cultural tourism resource for those countries fortunate enough to have historically pertinent wrecks in their territorial waters. Like land-based cultural heritage, those sites are an integral part of humanity’s common heritage and it must receive similar attention, investment and management while learning from the mistakes made by archaeology in other significant places like Egypt and Greece. This heritage offers a huge potential but at the same time places a great responsibility on the Governments charged with exploiting and protecting these sites for the World. Education and understanding are essential to ensuring the public is informed and educated so it can take part of preserving what is left of our common underwater heritage. Increasing awareness of this important issue is the first step in taking action against the increasing destruction of irreplaceable underwater cultural heritage sites. With a newly developed public outreach program the Oceans Discovery and its Foundation will, together with UNESCO, ICOMOS/ICUCH and other organisations embark on a mission to preserve the integrity of our remaining cultural heritage.

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