[meteorite-list] Our next major source of meteorites?

From: Martin Altmann <altmann_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Tue, 11 May 2010 14:39:04 +0200
Message-ID: <003801caf106$f0f1d9c0$6502a8c0_at_name86d88d87e2>

Hi Mark,

and there would be so easy solutions.

Relation state & owner


1) Mandatory: the type/deposite share of a stone has to go to an Australian
institute. (Zero costs solution).

2) Split decision: 50% of the find for the state, 50% for the owner.
  (Zero costs).

3) Preemption of the state. State is allowed to buy first, if there is no
interest in, owner can do with the stone, what he wants (New Canadian model.
Costs money).

4) Compulsatory sale to the state with compensation of the owner.
  (Does not work in most countries, cause the owner/finder/hunter has no
warrantee, that the compensation will be fair. Costs money).

5) Expropriation.
   (Like found in some states of Australia. Doesn't work at all. No finds
anymore + highly problematic under constitutional law. Zero costs, but also
zero meteorites).

6) No laws. Generates, see Morocco, USA, etc. most finds.
   (Can cost money - but turns prices for meteorites down and anyway
type/deposits are for free).

7) Owner stays owner, but export restrictions.
   (Costs money. Doesn't work well, see Australia, see early Canada.
    If UNESCO 1970, then UNIDROIT. Endangers the existing institutional
collections)

8) Licensing procedures. State sells hunting licenses. Obligation to make
find documentation. + Options like in 1) or 2) or 3)


9) Total restriction + state hunts by its own.
   (Doesn't work at all. And doesn't happen. See Australia, see Algeria, see
China, see...
    Not enough manpower, no good find rates, most expensive solution of
all; no sufficient funds, therefore not practicable.)


10) State hires professional hunters.
    (The Early-Nininger-Solution. Costs money, but generates much more
meteorites than 9. and is ways more cheap).



Second complex is the relation finder and landowner.

In principle there is no necessity for regulation, as in the very most cases
hunters and landowners come quickly to an agreement by their own.

A) Finder zero, landowner all.
   (Doesn't work for states land. Cause states tend to be too greedy and
give no reward, while private owners in general are happy to get a totally
unhoped-for extra).

B) Finder all, landowner zero.
   (Not directly fair for private landowners, but suitable for states
property, if a country has the objective to increase the number of national
meteorites).

C) Finder 50%, landowner 50%.
   (Sounds to me fairest and most easily practicable).


Other suggestions?

Which method or which combination of methods generates the most meteorites
and the lowest costs,
there the parties hereto simply have to check the Bulletins for:

- the number of finds.
- the tkw of the finds.
- the development of the number of finds per year and per country.
  (Especially in countries, where different laws were introduced).

And they have to check:

- who found them. Private or public.
- who found which parts of the tkws.
- the prices of the meteorites from different countries (with and without
laws).
- the development of the prices throughout the last 200 years.
- the costs of publically founded expeditions + the finds of the latter.
- the expenses of meteorite institutes/museums for meteorite acquisitions
during the last 200 years.


That's a little bit statistics, empiricism and a little bit history.
But that we have to take for granted with these people from the public
sector and scientists, taking part in the process of establishing meteorite
laws. It is a constituent of their branch of science and of their
profession, they're paid for, to know how meteoritic finds are and were
generated.

I for my own am happy to live in a country, where I can be sure, that with
every promising fireball, there will be someone trying to find a possible
meteorite, a country, where each new find can be unworriedly be announced to
the "officials" by the finders, where I can be sure, that from each new find
a part will end in a national museum and on public display
 - and where I, whenever I should ever find a meteorite, won't be harassed
by legal prosecution by the state, and a country wherein I'm not looked at a
priori as a suspect person or even a possible criminal by the state (I ask
myself, what for a relation the Australian state has to its citizens, what
for an idea of man, that they have such laws); that I don't have to fear
arbitrary dispossession (as it was common in my land under the Nazi-regime
and until 20 years ago in the Eastern part under the communist system).
Because people here are of good reason; a meteoritic find here, is other
than in some other countries, a remarkable and a happy event
and nobody would have the abstruse idea to introduce meteorite laws.

Unfortunately my land is green, humid, with a high variability of
temperature, densely settled, with a lot of agrarian used surface, with a
soil pumped full of metal from 2000+ years metallurgy, industry and endless
wars and with soil properties, which let meteorites very quickly disappear
from the surface. I have no strewnfields here and I have no deserts here.
And my country has a surface 22 times smaller than Australia.

Unfair it is that in the 30 years I'm interested in meteorites, only a
single good shower happened in my nearer surroundings. Now in Slovakia. But
most stones will be lost forever, cause Slovakia adapted a similar law, like
in the strictest states of Australia.

Australia has all that, what most other countries with a rich meteorite
tradition and with an active meteorite science don't have.

Australia wasn't a meteoritic diaspora. Australia was a country famous for
its meteorites and for a long scientific tradition. It was turned into a
meteoritic cemetery by means of an unhandy policy and that within only 20
years and for 20 years now.

Now it is time for a new dawn in Australia.
And I think those who still adhere to that old protectionism against all
reason and experience, should be so fair and make way in favour of their
colleagues, who do want to work on new meteorites.
Nobody will disturb them, they can continue to look at the 200th time at
their Maralingas and their Murchisons, both found in the years, when
meteoritics in Australia still was free,
but Australia and the meteoritic World is waiting for new Australian
recoveries!

Let's go!
Martin




 

  




-----Urspr?ngliche Nachricht-----
Von: meteorite-list-bounces at meteoritecentral.com
[mailto:meteorite-list-bounces at meteoritecentral.com] Im Auftrag von Mark
Ford
Gesendet: Dienstag, 11. Mai 2010 09:56
An: Meteorite-list at meteoritecentral.com
Betreff: Re: [meteorite-list] Our next major source of meteorites?

Well said Martin! - policy makers and private hunting skeptics take note!

Up side of no meteorite hunting/export regulations = many new finds
Down side of no meteorite regulations = higher prices/value (though this
actually leads to more finds)

Up side of meteorite regulation = meteorites left in the ground
Downside of meteorite regulation = next to none available for study or
collectors (i.e no one wins) the rocks carry on rusting!

Mark
Received on Tue 11 May 2010 08:39:04 AM PDT