The Federal Public Ministry (MPF) in São Paulo will make in April 05 a public audience to discuss the regulation of archaeologist activities. The audience will be preceded of a preparatory meeting in April 04 in MPF dependencies.
The initiative is part of a vast discussion that also covers the self-regulation of the profession with the making of a good practices protocol and direction of proceedings and the settlement of minimum criteria to the archaeology exercise.
The public audience will be conducted by the Prosecutor of Republic Inês Virginia Prado Soares, placed in the Republic Attorneyship in São Paulo and collaborator of the National Workgroup about Cultural Heritage of 4ª MPF Chamber of Environment Coordination and Review of MPF Cultural Heritage.
In the last Tuesday the Attorneyship participated of a meeting with about twenty professionals of the area between them Maria Clara Migliacio, director of National Centre of Archaeology (CAN) of the Institute of National Historic and Artistic Heritage (IPHAN) and Eduardo Góes Neves, president of Society of Brazilian Archaeology (SAB).
In the meeting were discussed details for the next meeting that will happen in the public audience. It was fixed for example that the audience edict will be released with the documents made by SBA that may be discussed by internet during March.
The debate about the professional regulation has been intense since the last decade but there is no consensus about the best way to do it. “There are juridical and political questions about the best formatting as for example if the regulation must be done by a Professional Counsel or if the self-regulation is enough” explained the Prosecutor. All the law projects that tried to regulate the profession were archived, the last one this week.
According to the Prosecutor MPF has an important participation in this process because the archaeological heritage belongs to the Federal Union heritage and a cultural patrimony of a unique importance to the comprehension of the human being trajectory through the centuries. “The crescent offer of graduation and post graduation courses and the consequent opening of new work field in archaeology demands a constant reflection about the minimum criteria to the activity exercise” she affirmed.
In the last years the demand for the archaeology work has been increasing including the offers of graduation and post graduation courses. “in 1991 IPHAN authorized five archaeological researches. In 2010 they issued almost 1000 authorizations”, explained Inês Soares.
Source: Federal Public Ministry - Republic Attorneyship in São Paulo