A new law intended to more fully protect the Island's marine heritage will finally make it to the House of Assembly during the current session.

And hefty fines will be imposed on those who violate Bermuda's wrecks and other underwater artefacts if the Bill finds favour with the Island's legislators.

But the Bill would effectively put an end to bounty hunting as divers will not be rewarded for their discoveries.

The Bill - The Historic Wrecks Act 2001 - was pulled at the 11th hour after being tabled before the summer recess.

Government Whip Ottiwell Simmons could not say at the time why it had been withdrawn or when it would be taken up again.

But The Royal Gazette has learned that Government has yielded to strong opposition to its proposals to allow divers to benefit financially when they recover artefacts.

And the Bill made it back onto the legislative agenda in the latest Throne Speech and was tabled for the second time this year on Friday - without provisions for financial compensation.

The Bill establishes a Historic Wrecks Authority, a Custodian of Historic Wrecks and imposes a one-year prison sentence or a $25,000 fine on those who tamper with a wreck or historic artefact without a licence.

Those who violate the conditions of their licences will be liable to a $10,000 fine or a year in prison.

If passed into law in its current form, the Custodian of Historic Wrecks will have the power to grant licences in three classes - to survey a site, excavate a site and remove artefacts and to work on an open wreck site.

The Bill also establishes authority over all wrecks and artefacts with the Minister of the Environment and offers amnesty to divers who may have broken existing salvage laws.

And it would establish a National Collection for public display of the artefacts.

Current laws are considered outdated and successive Governments have been under pressure from conservationists to make improvements since the early nineties.

New legislation, aiming to protect the shipwrecks from being destroyed by bounty hunters, was first drafted in 1989.

But finding a solution which satisfies the interests of divers and conservationists has proven in the past to be too delicate a balancing act to successfully bring new laws to the House of Assembly.

And initial responses suggest that the new laws will remain controversial for some time.

United Bermuda Party backbencher Trevor Moniz, who joined Maritime Museum director Dr. Edward Harris in opposing one version of the legislation being brought by the UBP in 1997, because of its compensation provisions, said the new incarnation of the Bill was definitely an improvement.

"Our point was if you pay people you won't be able to keep the stuff," said Mr. Moniz, a member of a joint House Committee on wrecks and the vice chairman at the Maritime Museum.

"We always took the view that the bottom of the ocean belongs to Government."

He added that the important thing was to create the right circumstances for proper preservation of Bermuda's marine heritage.

"People used to go down and rip these wrecks to pieces looking for gold or silver," which meant that the degradable items were at risk of being lost forever, he said.

"All needs to be conserved.

"And at the moment there's only one conservation lab in Bermuda - the Maritime Museum."

He added : "It isn't a race to find these things.

"We know they're out there and we'll deal with it in an orderly fashion."

The Bill does have a provision giving the Environment Minister discretion to pay a "good faith honorarium" in "certain circumstances".

"It's been a long, hard struggle for us," Mr. Moniz said.

But he could not say whether he can support it entirely when it comes up for debate as he had not studied it thoroughly.

Meanwhile, some in the diving community are not too happy at the Bill's new incarnation.

Former Premier and avid diver Dr. David Saul said people would not be too inclined to report their finds if they were not going to be compensated for taking the time, effort and money to recover a wreck according to the terms of their licence.

"In principle I had no objection to the one that was withdrawn," said Dr. Saul.

He said it was "only fair and reasonable" for someone who has followed the letter of the law in recovering a wreck be compensated for the "time and effort they put in to recover the wreck to international standards".

"To say they are entitled to nothing would definitely encourage people to not recover the wrecks according to the letter of the law."

Mr. Moniz insists, however, that earlier drafts would have encouraged not conservation but "pillaging and plunder of the wrecks".

And it is time to end the era when the Island's underwater heritage was treated as a "rich man's playground", he said.

According to Mr. Moniz, the diving community itself is split on the issue of compensation.

"Not all of them are reconstructed, some of them are unreconstructed treasure hunters.

"Things that were acceptable in the 1960s are not acceptable now - standards have changed," he said.

"There shouldn't be any incentive - it's part of the patrimony of the Country."

Said Dr. Saul: "There's got to be a common sense approach to it.

"And calling the other side names doesn't help."

The Bill conforms to the United Nations Convention on the Protection of the Underwater Cultural Heritage which was also presented to the House of Assembly on Friday.