The second virtual meeting of the Coordination Committee for the Protection of Underwater Cultural Heritage on the Skerki Banks site

As a continuation of the initiative to protect the Skerki Banks area, on January 19th 2021, the 2nd virtual meeting of the Coordination Committee for the Protection of Underwater Cultural Heritage on the Skerki Banks site was held. The first part of the meeting was attended by members of the Coordination Committee (representatives of countries involved in the project - Tunisia, Morocco, Algeria, Egypt, Italy, Spain, France and Croatia), representatives of the UNESCO cultural sector and members of the Secretariat in 2001. Convention. In the second part the meeting was joined by legal experts nominated by States Parties and members of the Coordination Committee. ICUA Zadar director Mladen Pešić, PhD, participated in the virtual meeting as a representative of Croatia.

The meeting was opened by Lazare Eloundou Assomo, Director for Culture and Emergency Situations of UNESCO and Ouafa Ben Slimane (National Heritage Institute of Tunisia), a representative of the coordinating State.
A draft Action Plan for International Cooperation and a draft chronogram of international cooperation activities within the initiative were accepted, and at the suggestion of Algerian representative Mr. Toufik Hamoum (National Centre for Archaeological Research) a workshop on deep archaeology to be organized in Algeria was included.
French representative Michel L´Hour (Director of the Department of Underwater and Submarine Archaeological Research of the Ministry of Culture - DRASSM) reported
that a new French archaeological research vessel Alfred Merlin (owned by DRASSM) will be launched in May 2021 and will be used for the first scientific mission to Skerki Banks.
Legal experts who will participate as advisors to the Coordination Committee were presented at the meeting. Along with the Croatian representative Trpimir Šošić, PhD, representatives were delegated by France (Diane Roeser), Italy (Tullio Scovazzi), Tunisia (Montessar ben Salem, Kaouthar Debbeche and external advisor Mariano Aznar), while other States Parties will subsequently select their legal expert. During the meeting the legal experts advised the Coordination Committee members on a number of issues that must be addressed before the implementation of the scientific mission.