6th May 2010, 01:18 PM
BAJR Wrote::face-topic:
(ie... more people have voted on this poll than the IfA Council election) and I know all too well the problems of getting people invoveled.
Interesting indeed.
I think the main problem with this discussion is that there is a lot of 'change the world for the better' solutions. Some more informed than others. But with very little actual problem solving.....just my opinion.
Our industry seems to be in a similar situation as ecology, prior to the acts that covered mitigating ecological impacts got beefed up as law. Farmers, construction etc could destroy habitats, rip up hedges willy nilly. All they had to say was sorry, i didn't know. As until it was made law, this was a defence.
However, we all saw the rigmorole and hoo-har ecologists, climatologists etc had to do to be taken seriously by governments. Archaeology is seen as less of an issue than saving biodiversity (and hence the human race). I think until this changes, archaeology will always be considered LAST in the massive list of concerns, impacts etc. considered in putting in a planning application.
A good example of this is Environmental Statements (ES) for a pipeline say, where all the impacts of the construction are stated from visual impact, noise, pollution, disruption to the transport system, loss of biodiversity and all the way down the bottom is the archaeology.