Conservation should soon be a warranted profession

Conservators' 15-year wait to be recognised legally was likely to come to a happy end this year, said their association's president, James Licari.
The Malta Association of Professional Conservator-Restorers (MAPCo-Re) was informed that the long-promised warrant system for the conservation profession would kick in by the end of this year, he said.
The conservation professionals' warrant is listed in the 2002 Cultural Heritage Act but has never been introduced. Amendments to certain aspects of the law, including granting the warrant, have been discussed in recent years.
According to Mr Licari, a warrant would ensure that the profession was acknowledged legally and that Malta's collective cultural heritage was preserved for its various values '" whether historic, religious, aesthetic or scientific '" through professional, scientific methods as well as appropriate materials.
Maritime historian Joan Abela, whose voluntary work has helped save and conserve innumerable historic documents, has warned in the past that heritage needs to be protected from amateurish conservation work.
More recently, Mario Buhagiar, from the University of Malta's Department of Art and Art History, spoke of...

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