AW: [meteorite-list] Norway here we come!

From: Martin Altmann <altmann_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Mon Jul 24 05:42:10 2006
Message-ID: <00ac01c6af04$e168f580$4f41fea9_at_name86d88d87e2>

Hi Dean, Matt et al. and all,

We don't have to forget, that if a special law explicitly mentioning
meteorites does exist in a country, then it is a great exception.
Most countries don't have productive areas, wherefrom meteorites occur,
and politicians and the judiciary aren't different from other people too:
They simply don't know, what a meteorite is and never would get the idea to
enact an extra law for meteorites, when there every 30 years or so a little
stone is found.

Norway is not a desert state, it has 11 meteorites since Chladni found out,
what a meteorite is. So I doubt that it has any law concerning the removal
or export of meteorites and a way to subsume such a stone from space to
existing laws would first have to be found.
Very sure I am, that no embassy there would be able to give you a correct
answer.

I remember well the difficulties to determine the legal status of the
Neuschwanstein meteorite, which fell a few years ago here in Germany.
Germany is the country of Chladni, has very old institutional collections,
has 4 times more finds&falls than Norway and is known to be a silly sick
overregulated country with a Kafkaesque jungle of laws, regulations and
precedents (which sometimes even overrule physical laws of nature).

Hence, if such a country, where people e.g. have a legal right for a
temperature of 20?C on the toilets at their place of employment and where on
the countryside the roosters are sentenced to crow on weekdays only from 7
a.m. on, but on weekend and on holydays not before 8 a.m.,
hence if even there doesn't exist a law for meteorites, why should be then
there a law in Norway?

For the Neuschwanstein stones they found out, that they are no exploitable
treasures of the soil, nor archaeological cultural items, nor mushrooms and
berries to be picked, and finally found a law handling with natural
monuments of the soil. Well, so one part belonged to the finders, the other
half to the land owner.
A few km away, as those laws are federal laws, one would have had to prove
other laws.

Meteorites are so extremely rare (and have no economical relevance), that I
guess, that in the very most countries do not only exist no laws concerning
them, but also, that never someone had the idea to concern oneself with the
question under which laws a meteorite could fall.

And of course at an embassy they won't be able to give you a binding
disclosure :-)

Anyway, I suppose that only by great chance there will be found more stones
of that fall, our expedition team is on the way home again, so that those
questions won't have to be answered.

Buckleboo!
Martin




-----Urspr?ngliche Nachricht-----
Von: meteorite-list-bounces_at_meteoritecentral.com
[mailto:meteorite-list-bounces_at_meteoritecentral.com] Im Auftrag von dean
bessey
Gesendet: Sonntag, 23. Juli 2006 23:29
An: deanbessey_at_yahoo.com; meteorite-list@meteoritecentral.com;
mmorgan_at_mhmeteorites.com
Betreff: Re: [meteorite-list] Norway here we come!

--- Matt Morgan <mmorgan_at_mhmeteorites.com> wrote:
> I cannot, but I've spoken with 2 Norwegian's who
> hunt artifacts there
> and they assure me you cannot legally remove items
> of natural history
> without permit. This is hearsay, but I trust their
> word.
> Matt
>
I dont know Norway's meteorite laws but I suspect that
the only law that would cause farmer any problems is
UNESCO which norway is a part of.
Pretty much every country has laws preventing certain
items considered "Cultural property" from being
exported nowadays. UNESCO is is a wishy washy accord
where countries can pretty much interpret as they
please and can make anything they want to be cultural
property - used chewing gum if they wanted to could be
made illegal to export under UNESCO laws. Some
countries (Like Canada, India and asutralia) has
meteorites listed as cultural property and require
export permits under UNESCO and other signatory
countries to UNESCO is in theory supposed to return
the items if asked, others (Like Oman, Morocco and the
USA) do not and dont require export permits under
UNESCO.
I am sure that what Matt said above is true. In fact
it would be extremly unusual if it wasnt true.
However, wither it is illegal to export meteorites
from Norway depends on if Norway has meteorite laws.
And if it wasnt considered "Cultural property" or
otherwise fall under UNESCO rules even if there were
export laws they probably couldent be enforced once
they were actually removed from the country.
Of course, international laws concerning this is
complicated (And often convuleted), there could be
bilateral agreements in place ect, and also different
countries will treat the import differently (And often
how differently will depend on how well they get on
with the other government and the governments desire
to promote special interests and have nothing to do
with actual laws).
So while Matt is surely right in his statement above
that dont necessarily mean that meteorites can or
cannot be legally exported from Norway.
But if somebody really wants to know Norways stance on
this there is an easy way for you to find out. In fact
a gazillian emails argueing back and forth will not
change or clarify anything. The proper course if
action to find out such information is to just email
or call the local Norwegean embassy. You should easily
be able to find one in your country as Norway is a
rich country with lots of embassys.
I am sure that if somebody did this the whole list
would be interested in a report.
Me, I am not interested and wont bother calling the
embassy myself. I dont personnally have an interest in
new high publicity falls that will surely be grosely
overpriced for the first couple months that they hit
the market anyway.
Sincerely
DEAN


__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around
http://mail.yahoo.com
______________________________________________
Meteorite-list mailing list
Meteorite-list_at_meteoritecentral.com
http://six.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/meteorite-list
Received on Mon 24 Jul 2006 05:38:08 AM PDT