How Can Organized Groups Protect Sites?
Again, by “site protection” I mean both the physical protection of sites and the protection of the information which sites contain. This protection can, in addition, be both direct and indirect. There are, it seems to me, several ways in which groups can actively become involved in protecting sites. One of the most direct actions a group could take would be to purchase sites or arrange for conservation or preservation easements on sites. This could be done tangentially, through active support of The Archaeological Conservancy, the one entity in this country designed specifically to purchase threatened archaeological sites (see Michel this volume for a discussion of the Archaeological Conservancy). A second kind of direct action is for an organization or its individual members to become site Stewards, taking personal or group responsibility for the protection of a site or sites which is actually owned by someone else (see Hoffman this volume for a discussion of site stewardship programs
