Page 102 - Manual for Activities directed at the Underwater Cultural Heritage

be enhanced by corroboration and gradual addition whereas other elements of information will be acquired by focused desktop research and active field inventory.
Reasons for inventorying
Inventories are important for a number of reasons:
• to enable effective protection of the under- water cultural heritage;
• to identify and record the underwater cultural heritage;
• to get an overview of all the heritage sites;
• to compare sites in order to correctly direct
funds and attention to significant heritage;
• to provide a single point of access to in- formation on the underwater cultural heri-
tage;
• to provide a major resource for heritage
researchers, consultant archaeologists, lo- cal government authorities, government agencies, developers and students;
• to raise support for the endangered heritage;
• and ultimately, to celebrate the wealth of underwater cultural heritage and to
safeguard the underwater cultural heritage.
Accidentally acquired
information
In order to inventory existing heritage, a competent authority can start by actively acquiring data that is collected for other purposes, such as navigation safety, mapping of other resources, clearing of navigation channels or fishing. It can then evaluate this data for its heritage relevance. Various go- vernment and private agencies can provide such information on finds in the underwater environment. National authorities, ministries and departments undertaking activities on the seabed or riverbed, as for instance coastguards, the navy, dredging services, research services, fisheries monitoring, etc. should be required to confidentially communicate information on underwater cultural heritage that
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Preliminary work