“Ethical Detecting makes me want to throw up!”

It seems that those metal detectorists who want to walk away from any kind of public debate about the place of artefeact hunting in modern conservation policies are not alone. Heritage Action summarise three years of progress of the Ethical Metal Detecting Association, not only has there not been a single UK artefact hunter join it, there is a singular lack of interest in the Association (see their post: “Ethical Detecting makes me want to throw up!” today). This was prompted by a post last week by the Moderator (note, with regard to another discussion here, the need for such a function) of the UK and European Metal Detecting Forum:

“That EMDA idea is so ingratiating (sic) that I wanted to throw up. [...] I am proud to be in this hobby and happy to associate with some wonderful like minded people. I don’t feel we need to almost apologise for owning a detector and enjoying a days detecting within the laws. That EMDA is something you expect to see on April Fools day.”

HA reiterate the ten principles of ethical detecting, confident that if a normal person reads them, they’ll find nothing in them that one could think is unfair, unjust, impractical or unreasonable. What do you think?