18th April 2011, 11:58 AM
There are watching briefs undertaken by volunteers in my local area (the "lower risk" sites, commercial outfits do the sites of high importance). They work closely with the county archaeologist to a very high standard, and it's pretty much a case of if volunteers didn't do it then it wouldn't get done.
I'm not sure if it even qualifies as "public participation" given that only a very small subset of the total number of volunteers is given the work.
However, that's quite different to commercial outfits employing volunteers...and while some may say it's giving work to volunteers that unemployed professionals could be doing, that's ignoring the fact that somebody would have to pay to employ those professionals, and that's where it all falls down...
I'm not sure if it even qualifies as "public participation" given that only a very small subset of the total number of volunteers is given the work.
However, that's quite different to commercial outfits employing volunteers...and while some may say it's giving work to volunteers that unemployed professionals could be doing, that's ignoring the fact that somebody would have to pay to employ those professionals, and that's where it all falls down...