In what they see as a legal loophole that opens the door to fraud and exploitation, the International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW) want independent registered experts to take over the verification process, providing proper documentation of their findings.
The demand is part of the much-publicised Elephants On The High Street report, which has just been issued.
IFAW are highly critical of the ignorance of traders at some of the UK’s best-known antique markets and centres.
Their 40-page report sets out the findings of an investigation in which they monitored the trade in ivory within, out of and into the United Kingdom over a ‘snapshot’ period of several weeks in late 2003 and early 2004.
They reported a “thriving and uncontrolled trade in ivory” over the under-policed cyberspace of eBay but considered antiques markets as the major source of illegal ivory trading in the UK.
Portobello Road Market – one of half a dozen sites chosen as a site for investigation – received a particularly poor press last week following the ‘revelations’ that carvings most likely made after 1947 were to be found at the UK’s largest antiques and collectables market.
Although the Portobello Traders’ Association make it clear that their members must be aware of the rules around the items they are selling, the report found some dealers at Portobello unaware of the legislation surrounding the ivory trade and others who encouraged purchasers to flout the law when exporting ivory.
The legal maze surrounding the sale of ivory is something that the report says is open to abuse.
Under current law the Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs (Defra) ask that, supported by documentary evidence, “sellers of ivory must be able to prove, should they be required to do so by the police, that specimens sold under the antiques derogation are genuinely worked items acquired prior to 1 June 1947.”
DEFRA advise people wishing to obtain an Article 10 certificate for such an ivory to have it appraised by an “auction house or antiques dealer”, but this has created a loophole. It has been taken to mean that anyone who calls themselves an antiques dealer can appraise the age of a piece themselves.
IFAW say the self-policing measure is not working. Now they want independent registered experts to take over – they are also working on a programme of raising awareness of legal obligations among those trading in ivory – and the penalties they face for breaking the law.
Copies of the Elephants On The High Street report are available from IFAW, 89 Albert Embankment, London SE1 7UD or via the website ww.ifaw.org
Ivory campaigners hit out at antiques trade
CAMPAIGNERS against the illegal trade in ivory want to end the exisiting policy which allows any antique dealer to appraise the age of ivory in works of art.
