fossil collecting in Thailand

[Adrienne Mayor <afmayor@aol.com>]

Given the recent discussions on the lists about fossil collecting 
legislation, I thought these recent comments by a French paleontologist 
who works in Thailand would be of interest:

"Things are getting hot over there because the government is cracking 
down on illegal fossil collecting. When I was there, a shipment of 
dinosaur bones bound for the US was seized by customs and I spent some 
time trying to decide where they came from with my friends of the Thai 
geological survey. The smuggler faces 7 years in jail and a heavy fine. 
This story made headlines for at least a week in Thailand. I think 
people who know about unreported dinosaur sites in Thailand will now 
either keep very quiet about them, or report them to the authorities. 
The Thai government is now preparing a really stringent law about 
fossils. As the Geological Survey will be in charge of everything 
concerning fossils in the whole country, this is good for our group - 
but generally speaking I am not really in favor of completely 
forbidding fossil collecting, as it often leads to interesting finds 
and professionnal paleontologists cannot be everywhere. Still, fossil 
smuggling was increasing dangerously in Thailand, so the Thais had not 
much choice..."