In a recent review of Fishing and Shipwreck Heritage: marine archaeology’s greatest threat?,Footnote ¹ David Parham dismissed the big picture evidence of one of the hot topics in underwater archaeology today: the global impact of trawlers and dredges on sunken cargoes and hulls and the implications of the loss of rich data for understanding long-term history. Parham conceives much of the evidence presented as anecdotal and worryingly concludes that ‘Fishing can and does occur on sites for years with no obvious damage occurring … the evidence for damage beyond mere snagging of sites is very limited …’.Footnote ²

This approach to the subject – insular, political and Anglo-Saxon – is at odds with the extensive work of marine conservationists on the effects of bottom trawling (dubbed ‘bulldozers of the deep’) on marine environments. Nor does it correlate with the plethora of evidence from the ocean floor. Fishing and Shipwreck Heritage presents thirty examples of individual snags off the UK and forty-three overseas, and discusses six case studies of wider site damage in the UK and twenty-seven overseas. By cherry-picking the British evidence, 66 per cent of the factual argument is jettisoned.

Bottom trawling over wrecks is analogous to ploughing on land, but with a greater potential for devastation caused by the fragile nature of many cargoes and wooden hulls: witness the complete loss of first- to second-century AD Roman wrecks off Pudding Pan Rock, near Herne Bay, Kent, largely carrying Gaulish Samian ware, raked over by Whitstable oyster fishermen since the mid-eighteenth century and a source of immense fascination to members of the Society of Antiquaries.Footnote ³ Since trawl nets can rip 9.5-ton conning towers off First World War British submarines,Footnote ⁴ the vulnerability of sunken ceramic cargoes and ships’ structures to everything from inadvertent recovery to total site loss is no exaggeration and proven by the evidential footprint.Footnote ⁵

Among international specialists whose field experience has witnessed the rampaging effects of bottom fishing, Parham’s downplay is a minority voice. In relation to Fishing and Shipwreck Heritage, the world expert on the effects of bottom fishing, Callum Roberts, Professor of Marine Conservation at the University of York, wrote: ‘We wouldn’t plough up Nineveh or bulldoze Hadrian’s Wall, but unwittingly we have left extraordinary marine archaeological treasures to the mercy of trawl net and dredge’.Footnote ⁶ In 2015, leading specialists in marine conservation and archaeology also signed ‘The Wreck Watch Statement on Bottom Fishing, Underwater Cultural Heritage & Sustainable Practice’, which called on the governments of the world to recognise the profound threats of bottom fishing on the Marine Archaeological Critical Resource. The statement appealed to all stakeholders from divers to heritage managers to end the climate of denial and respect the non-finite character of the resource.Footnote ⁷

Parham fears conspiracy underlying the identification of fishing damage because such an approach ‘can be used as a justification for the excavation of shipwreck sites’. On-trend philosophies in marine archaeology currently frown on excavation in favour of seeking to protect sites through in situ preservation. My viewpoint is less fettered by pragmatic necessity. A monolithic preservationist model is prohibitively restrictive because no single magic bullet can mitigate the effects of bottom fishing. In my book’s conclusion, I argue that ‘Social, economic, political and cultural customs and pressures differ so widely from country to country that inflexible cherry-picked single solutions are a fool’s paradise … As long as the issue remains a low political priority, practical mitigation options will have no alternative but to be approached regionally, reactively and on a site-by-site basis’.Footnote ⁸

The conclusion proposes diverse management options ranging from in situ avoidance considerations, such as anti-trawling tripwire devices, concrete block exclusion zones physically preventing trawler intrusion (Sicily model) and iron cage enclosures over wrecks (Croatia model) to the intrusive removal from harm’s way in a minority of cases (1.8 per cent of national totals maximum) of select at-risk material through sample excavation and preservation by record (historical particularism model). What works best is a decision for national heritage management regimes.

Fishing and Shipwreck Heritage seeks to frame a debate around the world’s underwater cultural heritage as a casualty of bottom fishing. As the first book on the subject, drawing together an extremely diverse set of complex evidence from around the globe, it does not pretend to offer all the answers. I wrote the book as the Director of Wreck Watch International, with no agenda beyond highlighting a comparatively neglected dilemma and to prompt the start of a balanced discussion on an area of profound importance in maritime archaeology.