Looting, a 'Call for Action', but in the Wrong Sphere?

Scholars can make a difference combating the illicit antiquity market. Roberta Mazza, 'Looting: A Call for Action' on Faces and Voices:

It is remarkable that the mechanics through which the illegal, ongoing antiquity market is flourishing are still those of the colonial era. Dealers exploit the poverty of local populations for obtaining their collaboration, and then at the end of the supply chain they earn a thousand time more than what local looters received. As the authors of the above mentioned reports underline, it is the high demand for antiquities from collectors mostly based in North America, Europe, China and the Gulf that is nurturing these activities. We are still living in the age of empires under many respects.

She points out that scholars do very little to combat this process and proposes doing "two simple things". What is needed, she suggests' is "changing the mentality of collectors" and asking editorial boards, professional associations, museums and other institutions "to enforce stricter rules on the publication and exhibition of Egyptian antiquities of recent acquisition". Basically this is the same issue. The people who issue these publications, run museums etc have (especially in the USA) the same mentality as the collectors, they want pretty and trophy stuff and can think of a dozen weasel-worded "justifications" for ignoring the other concerns.

As somebody who's been watching them for several decades, it is my firmly-held opinion that "changing the mentality of collectors" is not going to happen. On reading what many of them  write about what they do and why we should allow them to carry on regardless, we might be forgiven for thinking that it reveals that in general, most of them have the mentality and consciences of insects.

It is not collectors and their attitudes that we need to set our sights on changing, in my opinion, that is a  lost cause and a distraction from the only thing that will work. What we need to change are public attitudes to what collectors are doing. Once no-questions-asked collecting has a generally-perceived social status on a par with bird egg collectors and ivory poachers (and when collectors and dealers perceive themselves as on the brink of being outlawed due to public demand - together with all those expensive artefacts they bought without any paperwork), then and only then might we see some attempts by collectors to clean up their act. I sincerely doubt that there is any goodness in the milieu as a whole that will lead to that happening before they find themselves on the brink of a crisis. Let scholars head in that direction. Stop treating the no-questions-trading Black Hat Guys as equals, scholars should use their influence and contacts with the media to get the public to see them for what they are.

We used to have scholars to lead public opinion, today, who and what are they?