The Regional Secretary for Education and Culture revealed in Ponta Delgada that the Azores will now have archaeological risk charters for the sites classified as being of public interest.
 
Avelino Meneses who was heard by the Committee on Social Affairs of the Legislative Assembly about the proposal to amend the legal scheme on the management of archaeological heritage. He informed that the changes under analysis are aimed at "improving" the protection of archaeological heritage.
 
Speaking at the end of the meeting, the Regional Secretary stressed that the main purpose of this legislative amendment is "to safeguard heritage rather than being a mere reaction to the hazards of everyday life."
 
The risk charters will be drawn up after the approval of the regional legislative decree under discussion and its regulation. They will comprise sites classified as being of public interest and their respective protection zones, added Avelino Meneses.
 
For the Regional Secretary, these charters are "very important" for urban planning, among other things, insofar as they are an important tool "to help designers and building owners in the planning of interventions and investments."
 
With the amendments now proposed, the new legal document "combines" terrestrial and underwater archaeology. In this regard, Avelino Meneses stressed that experts now consider that "the procedures are quite identical regardless of the environment where the interventions take place."
 
Therefore, the amendment to the legislation in force in the Azores is based on two aspects. The first concerns the "new layout" of archaeology in the archipelago, which is "marked by the substantial growth" of identified archaeological sites, while the second concerns the new international guidelines on archaeology.
 
The legislative amendments are also intended to promote "the simplification of some procedures" in order to make the necessary archaeological interventions as soon as possible.