Endangered Species

MADAM – As a dealer (and collector) in antique needlework tools and other small collectables, I am dismayed and angered by the proposals for the ivory ban as outlined in detail in last week’s ATG.

MADAM – I would suggest sending a copy of last week’s ATG guide to the ivory ban to every MP with an appropriate covering letter.

BADA has clarified a key element of the government’s proposals for a near-complete ivory ban – the stipulation that all items qualifying for the ‘rarest and most important of its type’ and portrait miniature exemptions must be 100 years old.

MADAM – Having read the government (Defra) statement on the UK ivory ban (ATG No 2337), it is obvious that far from offering clarity, it is flawed on the following points:

MADAM – I am alarmed at the government’s apparently poor understanding of how the trade works and its relationship with collectors and venerable institutions.

Roland Arkell and Noelle McElhatton on what the new ivory law could mean for art and antiques.

ATG selects objects with ivory – from teasets to Art Deco figures – recently sold at auction that may become illegal to sell under the law

The new, as yet unnamed law will allow for narrow exemptions to the ban. These comprise:

The art and antiques trade is calling on the government to re-think its planned restrictions on the sale of antique items containing small amounts of elephant ivory.

The general parameters of the government’s ivory ban, on the cards for years, are finally clear. As always with issues of CITES, the devil will be in the detail. Though the trade feels despondent in the face of the ban, a small concession on the currently very narrow 'de minimis' rule will make the ban a lot more manageable.

MADAM – Defra’s findings outlined in the post-consultation document include an extraordinarily impractical provision for the ‘de minimis’ exemption – requiring registration (with an as yet unspecified fee) of all objects with an ivory content below 10% created before 1947.

MADAM – I concur with everything that Michael Baggott wrote in ATG No 2235.

The Department for Environment Food & Rural Affairs (Defra) is expected to publish a response to the ivory ban consultation this month.

MADAM – I was open-mouthed in disbelief to see again opinion discussed as fact when the ivory issue was aired on national television (ATG No 2334).

MADAM – I have pieces of antique elephant tusk ivory that I collected unconcerned about the (now well-known) conservation problems.

Leaders of four African countries have called on the UK and the EU to ban the trade in antique ivory to help stop elephant poaching.

William George, an online-only auctioneer which ceased trading antique ivory in 2017, is setting up a group called Auctioneers Against Ivory for auctioneers considering their own antique ivory strategies.