Developing countries are able to guard and preserve their own cultural treasures  It may have been true that countries such as Greece were not capable of looking after their heritage in the past, but that has now changed. Since 197  5 Greece has been carefully restoring the Acropolis and Athens now has a secure environment to maintain the marbles. The state-of-the-art New Acropolis Museum, which cost $200m, has now been completed to house the surviving marbles [1] , and even contains a replica of the temple, thus the marbles would appear as being exactly the same as on the real temple. Pollution control measures (such as installing pollution monitoring stations throughout metropolitan Athens and ensuring that motor vehicles must comply with emission standards [2] ) have reduced sulphur-dioxide levels in the city to a fifth of their previous levels.  At the same time the curatorship of institutions such as the British Museum is being called into question, as it becomes apparent that controversial cleaning and restoration practices may have harmed the sculptures they claim to protect. In the 1930s the British museum’s attempt to clean them using chisels caused irreparable damage. [3] They have also been irresponsible when it comes to protecting the fate of many of its artefacts: “The British Museum has sold off more than 30 controversial Benin bronzes for as little as £75 each since 1950, it has emerged”; “The museum now regrets the sales” [4] .  [1] Acropolis museum, Home page.  [2] Alexandros.com, ‘Greece’.  [3] Smith, Helena, ‘British damage to Elgin marbles ‘irreparable’’, The Guardian, 12 November 1999.  [4] BBC News, ‘Benin bronzes sold to Nigeria’, 27th March 2002.