The Island should join the international trend towards protecting historic wrecks from piecemeal destruction by "scavengers and treasure hunters'', visiting Vancouver Maritime Museum executive director Mr. James Delgado recommended.

He pointed to a statement by Bermuda Maritime Museum director Dr. Ed Harris that at least one of Bermuda's wrecks, the Constellation , had "basically been pilfered to death''.

Mr. Delgado was opposed to governments handing out salvaging licences to "treasure hunters'' -- people out to commercially exploit their findings.

Removing goods from wrecks eventually "destroyed'' them, he said. And it was "robbing'' countries of their heritage.

Wrecks had to be salvaged scientifically and archaeologically. And everything found on them should belong to the nation, not private individuals, he believed.

"The international trend is towards conservation and preservation ethics,'' he said.

Noting the restoration work by the Bermuda National Trust at Tucker House, and the work on Commissioner's House and Fort St. Catherine, he said: "Bermuda has been taking strong steps on land and it should be doing the same underwater.'' Mr. Delgado sits on the United Nations' International Commission on Monuments and Sites (ICOMAS), which is developing guidelines for designating shipwrecks as world heritage sites. Some 142 nations had signed ICOMAS, including Britain, he said.

The Commission wanted wrecks to be regarded in the same way as historic monuments on land.

"They are the world's greatest untouched troves of material that can tell us about our past,'' he said.

But scavengers and treasure hunters were destroying historic wrecks by taking goods off them, legally and illegally, leading to exposure of timbers and creation of weak points causing the ship to fall apart.

In America, dive boat operators were some of the strongest opponents of wreck pilfering, he said.

They had recognised much of their livelihood depended on being able to take dive groups and tourists down to see interesting wrecks.

Governments should look down on museums that seek in their exhibits to "glorify'' and "glamourise'' treasure hunters and their findings -- because they had probably led to the destruction of important shipwrecks.

The issue was a "major dilemma'' for maritime museums today, he conceded.

Mr. Delgado said his museum did not accept any exhibits salvaged purely for commercial exploitation.

But if museums were going to display such treasures, they should do so in a way that did not glorify how they were recovered.

He said "all eyes'' in the international maritime museum were on the Bermuda Underwater Exploration Institute to see what exhibits would be accepted and how they would be displayed.

Plans for the high-tech BUEI, whose collections policy has been the source of much controversy, are currently before the Development Applications Board for decision.

Mr. Delgado is on the Island to do research on the Bermuda-built 1818 brig William and Ann , which he believes lays at the mouth of the Columbia River on the border of US states Washington and Oregon.

"It would be the only shipwreck of a Bermuda-built 19th century vessel to be found and the first recorded shipwreck, of thousands, at the mouth of the Columbia River,'' he said.

Mr. Delgado, who is planning to probe the river bed for her, said he had learned through his research that the 74-foot vessel was built for a St.

George's merchant and later sold as a trading vessel to the famous Hudson's Bay Company.

He was confident of finding the wreck as timber heads of Bermuda cedar had been found near the mouth of the river.

He assured that if he did find her, he would leave her intact so the maximum amount of information could be gleaned from her.

Any salvaging would be done professionally by archaeologists.

Mr. Delgado also brought with him a painting of the ship HMS Malabar to present to the Queen.

It had been in his museum's collection for two decades but after learning of its historic significance to Bermuda, he decided to transfer it to the Bermuda Maritime Museum.