[meteorite-list] Permit Needed to Hunt Meteorites on Parks in Canada

From: dean bessey <deanbessey_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Fri Jan 6 15:42:45 2006
Message-ID: <20060106204241.94442.qmail_at_web31508.mail.mud.yahoo.com>

The idea of needing permits to hunt meteorites is in
my opinion a sound idea. Becides keeping track of
scientific meteorite information it would also inform
of any dangerous areas and also help protect you from
people like the pellisons trying to scare people from
buying your meteorites with outragous fiction or
certain other people who try and scare you into
thinking they are illegally exported.
In the case of The Manitoba story in this posting (And
the only info I have is from Ron's posting so I am
just guesing here) but the fact that the Manitoba
government is not charging a fee - and that they are
requiring a permit for an activity that is not going
on anyway, makes me think that somebody in government
has hit on the idea to try and encourage meteorite
hunting and the whole permit idea is a marketing
effort. As long as there are no ulterior motives to
steal any meteorites found I think the Manitoba
government is on to something that should be copied
worldwide.
There is a major drive right now led by a handful of
countries like Italy and Egypt to shut down all trade
in cultural property. Italy has been sueing US museums
for the return of things legally exported 150 years
ago and Egypt has been blackmailing countries
(Recently Belgium) into returning legally exported
items or they will get archaelogocal reseach permiits
in egypt cancelled.
They have gotten recent support partly due to trying
to tack artifact rules onto a weakened American
governments foreign relations policies and the Taliban
destruction of the giant buddas a couple years ago has
garnered these countries a lot of support to shut down
the cultural property trade using somewhat
misinformation about what is actually going on and
ignoring the ramifications of the draconian cultural
property laws.
I think that over the next few years the whole process
will either be successful in shutting down the
cultural property trade (Including coins) or the
governments of the USA and western Europe will get
sick of it and make the whole trade more sane. The sad
part is that polution and development is quickly
destroying these unfound objects and nobody will ever
study them.
Meteorites of course deteriorates every day they are
not found and governments have no interest in spending
money searching for them.
Personally my solution to the meteorite grey legal
areas is to copy Manitoba's permit effort worldwide
but expand it to include a reasonable tax. 20% sounds
reasonable to me. After all if you remove gold or any
other resource or mineral from a country you get
taxed. I see no reason meteorites would be any
different (Or any type of cultural property for that
matter - although some things like artifacts would
require a record keeping and other restrictions). For
example say you wanted to hunt in Oman. Rather than
illegally enter the country and search on a tourist
visa get a search permit from the Oman embassy and the
government take 20% of anything you find as a tax.
That way researchers get more than they want and
scaremongers wont try and scare away your customers.
This is only fair. If you legally go mining in almost
any country in the world the local government takes a
cut. Being taxed on a money making venture is only
fair. And meteorite hunters are in the country with
the intention of making money. Most dealers donate
material to institutions if they ask anyway so I dont
even see an opposition.
When I lived in canada I always wished I lived
somewhere near a desert so I could go meteorite
hunting. Since moving to New Zealand last year I see
many flights to Australia advertised at NZ$109. So for
a couple hundred dollars and the cost of renting a
land rover I can go on a meteorite search in Australia
to my hearts content. But why bother? If I want to
just be a collector I cant even bring them to New
Zealand and if my sole purpose is money I cant export
them to Europe and the United states where almost all
my customers are loacted. So there is no benefit to me
to rescue these meteorites from the desert where they
deteorite more and more every day. This dont help me
and it dont help Australia and its scientists or world
researchers either. If I could get a permit that
required me to give (Its not donate - its a tax) the
australian government 20% of my finds and can export
the rest I would be making trip plans as I type.
The problem of course is that the whole meteorite
world is so small and the amounts of money involved so
miniscule that its way down the priority list of any
government.
But the scientists and special interests groups within
many governments cultural property departments are
being responsible for the destruction of lots of
unfound meteorites (And artifacts, coins and other
objects). It amounts to the biggest gross distruction
of natural history in the history of the world.
And to think that a tax would be a big part of the
solution. I wish me, the Manitoba government and a
bunch of like minded people interested in actually
preserving world heritage could get together and form
a voice to counteract the cultural property
destruction that Egypt, Italy and a handful of other
governments who are now trying to scam the world into
accepting and to actually create a sane world wide
cultural property system of laws. Remember, UNESCO was
never intended to totally end trade in Cultural
Property. It was designed to preserve and prevent
looting. But under UNESCO Egypt and Greece can say
anything - even shards of glass that they dont want is
cultural property and it is impossible to export it.
Over the past 3 decades UNESCO has proably destroyed
more cultural property than it has saved an dhas
greatly encouraged smuggling.
Sincerely
DEAN BESSEY
The Meteorite Shop
  












 




 

























 









--- Ron Baalke <baalke_at_zagami.jpl.nasa.gov> wrote:

>
>
http://www.winnipegfreepress.com/subscriber/local/story/3247510p-3760550c.html
>
> Permit needed to hunt meteorites on Crown land
> Winnipeg Free Press (Canada)
> January 6, 2006
>
> THE province says meteorite hunters will need a
> permit if they want to
> go searching for space rocks in provincial parks or
> on Crown lands.
>
> Scientists believe there may be hundreds of
> thousands of meteorites
> waiting to be found in southeastern Manitoba.
>
> Metis rock hunter Derek Erstelle has found three
> since 1998 in the
> Whiteshell area -- in a provincial park, a
> provincial forest and a
> provincial heritage park.
>
> Don Cook, an assistant deputy minister with Manitoba
> Conservation, said
> the collection of meteorites would fall under the
> Provincial Parks Act.
>
> Cook said regulations would require an authorization
> permit to look for
> and remove meteorites. There is no charge for the
> permits.
>
> Cook said essentially the only restriction would be
> the removal of a
> rock that in some way compromises the integrity of
> the park.
>
> For example, you likely wouldn't be able to remove a
> rock that you
> couldn't carry out.
>
> There could also potentially be restrictions if the
> meteorite was found
> in a heritage site.
>
> Manitoba's Heritage Resources Act says that the
> province owns any "works
> of nature" with heritage value found in the province
> -- whether on Crown
> or private land -- but the province has generally
> not taken an interest
> in meteorites.
>
> University of Calgary planet scientist Alan
> Hildebrand said meteorites
> found on the ice or below the high water mark on a
> lake or stream are
> usually considered to belong to whoever finds them.
>
> Meteorites found on land typically belong to the
> landowner.
>
> Hildebrand said he is not aware of any province that
> asserts its right
> to ownership of meteorites found on Crown land.
>
> The researcher said that would be counterproductive,
> since it would
> dissuade people from searching for the space rocks,
> which provide
> valuable scientific information about asteroids.
> Meteorites can be worth
> from $1 to $10 a gram.
>
> Cook said the province isn't interested in owning
> any meteorites.
>
> He said those who find them are free to do whatever
> they like with the
> rocks.
>
> Erstelle gave one to a friend who sold it to the
> Royal Ontario Museum
> and he has provided pieces of the others to
> scientists. He said he plans
> to make rings for himself and the friend from part
> of his latest find.
>
> Austin Mardon of Edmonton found a moon rock when he
> was part of the
> Antarctic meteorite recovery program known as the
> "poor man's space
> program." He said Erstelle's finds confirm his
> prediction in 1988 that
> there could be similar concentrations of meteorites
> found in North
> America and Russia at the edge of former ice sheets.
>
>
> ______________________________________________
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> Meteorite-list_at_meteoritecentral.com
>
http://six.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/meteorite-list
>



                
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Received on Fri 06 Jan 2006 03:42:41 PM PST


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