Bermuda's shipwrecks will have to wait a little longer for protection. And no one is willing to say why.

Proposed legislation intended to more fully protect the Island's marine heritage was pulled at the eleventh hour. The Bill - The Historic Wrecks Act 2001 - was scheduled to be debated in the House last Friday.

Government party whip Ottiwell Simmons could not say why it had been withdrawn or when it would be taken up again.

And Ed Harris, Maritime Museum head and chairman of the Bermuda Historic Wrecks Committee - which would have given input into the legislation - declined to comment when contacted yesterday.

Environment Minister Terry Lister did not return calls by presstime.

The bill would have established a Historic Wrecks Authority, a Custodian of Historic Wrecks and make it an offence to tamper with a wreck or historic artefact without a licence.

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 set out Government's share of the value of artefacts recovered.

It also offers amnesty to divers who may have broken existing salvage laws.

Current laws are considered outdated and successive Governments have been under pressure from conservationists to make improvements since the early nineties.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

UBP backbencher Trevor Moniz, who joined Dr. Harris in opposing one version of the legislation being brought by the UBP in 1997, also declined to comment on the matter.

Dr. Harris' opposition in the past has been over the bill's proposals to compensate divers who find wrecks or artefacts.

Diver Nick Hutchins, who was consulted on the latest draft, told The Royal Gazette that he was surprised it had been withdrawn. "I think it's actually a good piece of legislation".