Arrogant? Maybe so. I prefer passionate and somewhat knowledgable about this one topic, but if the shoe fits...I've been called far worse,
Everyone is entitled to an opinion about graffiti removal, but not their own facts. Three facts are as follows:
1) Recent Cave "clean-ups" have destroyed very important prehistoric dark zone art in caves (Simek & Cressler, 2008)
2) Recent Cave "clean-ups" have destroyed very important historic resources in caves. (Pers. Comm. Marion Smith, 2010)
3) We do not know what cultural resources have been lost in many cave "clean-ups" because the sites were not properly
studied or documented before the activity took place.
This is not a new issue, and myself and my colleagues at the University of Tennessee Cave Archaeology Research Team (CART) have been "agitating" on it for so many years now that I tend to think that anyone still removing graffiti from a cave is either 1) a novice caver 2) willfully ignorant 3) so self righteous that they are going to do it no matter what anyone else thinks (you could call this the Keeler approach), which I consider little better than the deliberate vandalism they are trying to stop. But maybe there are concerned cavers who really want to know more about the issue, so I'll try to be a little more explicit.
The most important recent work on the topic is "Why Caves Should Not Be Cleaned," by Jan F. Simek and Alan Cressler (both of Cart), NSS News, November 2008, pp. 8-12. Recent workshops and discussions on the topic include The SERA Conservation Task Force Workshop at the June 2010 SERA Cave Carnival and the ICS/NSS Archaeology Session in Texas, August 2009.
Below is an article on the issue from a few years ago, though I made a few changes. It does mention some additional sources of information on the topic. Dave will probably recognize part of it .
Graffiti in Caves and Why it Should Not be Removed
Joseph Douglas
NSS 20059 (PH, F)
I feel that I should respond to the ongoing debate about the many graffiti removal projects cavers are engaged in, especially in light of some of the rationales and methods presented in a variety of forums, ranging from the NSS Conservation home page to the Conservation issues of the NSS News While many of you know my thoughts and concerns on this, perhaps others do not. I hope some will think anew about this issue. This is not a new debate, as it has appeared in previous issues of the NSS News and the old Cavers Digest. The issue is more pressing than ever though, because the incidents of damage to irreplaceable resources in caves from misguided restorationists appear to be growing.
I would first ask you all to be aware that removing graffiti in caves is extremely controversial. While many restorationists and others do it, including our most prominent conservationists and land managers, many others, especially preservationists and researchers, strongly recommend against it. The trend in cave preservation in the southeastern U.S., for example, is now towards not removing graffiti, even spray-paint. Removing graffiti does nothing to preserve the biologic or geologic components of a cave. It is an activity based entirely on restoring the aesthetics of a cave. Elsewhere I have argued that I do not believe aesthetics alone should drive cave conservation (See “Conservation, Preservation, and the Caver Community,” NSS News, February/March 1996, pp. 51-52). This is especially true for the question of removing graffiti, because the activity is so detrimental to historic preservation in caves.
I personally think that graffiti should not be removed at all, but if you are determined to do so here are some suggestions: 1) Remove nothing until a qualified archaeologist or historian experienced in historic preservation in caves views the site and assesses the graffiti. 2) All graffiti, even recent material, should be recorded before any action is taken. That includes recording information about the style, medium, and content of the material. 3) If you still are going to do it, you must secure approval from the cave owner - in most states it is a violation of cave protection laws to "disturb" the cave walls and ceiling without explicit (sometimes written) permission. Check the law in your state. In some states (like Alabama) it is illegal to remove graffiti, period. On Federal land any graffiti removal is a violation of the FCRPA of 1988 unless the project has explicit approval from the Secretary of Agriculture or Interior (not just some NPS Superintendent or USFS/BLM District Manager) 4) If you meet all the other criteria, remove it using methods that do no harm to the cave walls. Some of the methods described in NSS News articles, and papers at annual conventions, are totally unacceptable. Wire brushes, sand-blasting, and use of high-pressure water damage the walls and lead to more rapid erosion of the host rock. For the best discussion of methodological problems see Ken Follett, "Graffiti Control and Removal: Lessons from an Urban Setting," American Caves (Winter 1999):9-15. Jim Goodbar's paper "The Writing Is on the Wall: So How Do We Get it Off?" found on the NSS Website, is also useful, though it underplays the potential damage from the activity.
If one tries to follows the suggestions above, they'll find out that for suggestion #1 there are very few people in the U.S. trained and qualified to determine if graffiti should be removed. And they almost always recommend against it.
What is wrong with removing graffiti, you may ask, since it makes the cave look better? In addition to damage to the host rock and associated features, there is another compelling reason. You see, the prehistory and history of the cave is written on the walls too. There are numerous horror stories of well-meaning restorationists unintentionally damaging or destroying important cultural resources by their actions. (See David A. Hubbard, "Cave Conservation and Cave Clean-ups: Not Always One in the Same," NSS News (February 1995):31.) I have seen too many examples of this in my own research underground. Under that spray-paint there may well be historic graffiti from the 1700s to the 1900s. Under that historic graffiti there may well be American Indian glyphs or artwork from the time of Columbus, or perhaps two thousand years before. These are very hard to see or identify and require expert analysis. Some are smaller than my thumbnail. Some just look like doodles to the untrained eye. Even torch marks on the walls are important sources and can tell us about prehistoric and historic visitation. To most cavers they just look like carbon smudges.
In general, people interested in historic preservation in caves believe that the first rule is "do no harm." The removal of graffiti is way too risky. The threat of damage to irreplaceable resources is way too large. Yes, graffiti is ugly, we wish it were not there, and we should work hard to prevent it in the future, but removing it is not worth it. There are dozens of caves now known with deep cave prehistoric art. It has been found in Alabama, Tennessee, Georgia, Arkansas, Kentucky, Florida, Missouri, New Mexico, Wisconsin, and others. There is important historic graffiti known, but not yet recorded or studied, from thousands of U.S. caves. One of my own interests is in identifying names/dates/wall markings from the Civil War in southern caves. There are dozens of caves with these, as we are just now discovering. These resources are irreplaceable windows into the history of the cave. Yet they are very vulnerable to the zealous restorationist. So remove the broken glass and contemporary trash, make a single file trail, clean the speleothems, place a register for people to sign, educate the public, and if the cave's resources warrant it, gate it. But please be careful about the graffiti. Aesthetic restoration should not be privileged over historic preservation.
We generally do not believe that cavers can easily determine which biologic and geologic resources are important in caves and then recommend that they remove or destroy the "unimportant" ones. Instead we rely on experts in biology and geology. Why should cultural resources be different? But that seems to be what we are doing with these resources. Despite William R. Halliday's call for the NSS to adopt a policy for historic preservation in caves over fifteen years ago, we still do not have one. Thus right now many well-meaning cavers are going into caves and removing graffiti in an effort to "do good," inadvertently harming the resources within.
We might like to try to recreate a "pristine" cave environment without a trace of humans, but with the rare exception, people are both a part of nature and a part of the story of American caves. It reminds me of the early National Parks movement. People wanted to preserve parks as pristine environments, yet it turned out that the environment was not pristine at all but modified by people in many ways. But NPS wanted it to "look" right. So native and local peoples were moved out, traces of the human past were expunged, "bad" animals were extirpated, and we called it "wilderness," a cultural construct if ever there was one. Yet the environment itself was an artifact. So it is with most of our caves.
We cavers seem to be where the National Parks movement was prior to the 1930s, focusing primarily on aesthetics rather than on preserving biological diversity, geologic processes, and cultural resources. I'm all in favor of minimizing impacts in caves and preserving what we have. But exactly what are we restoring and what is the cost?