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Hopes that fossils and other ‘works of nature’ will be treated in the
same way as works of art when it comes to granting an export licence have
evaporated, following the Department of Trade and Industry’s decision not
to extend export controls to natural objects.

Licences for artworks considered part of the country’s heritage can
be delayed to give potential British buyers a chance to raise enough money
to match a foreign bid and so keep the work in the country.

Peter Lilley, the trade secretary, has written to the Office of Arts
and Libraries (OAL) saying that it would be impossible to grant such a breathing
space for natural objects. Controls could not be enforced without checking
every lump of coal that leaves the country, he says.

Museum curators are dismayed by the decision. The director of the Museums
Association, Mark Taylor, said: ‘To exclude items of natural history is
absurd. They are as important to this country’s heritage as paintings, machinery
or anything else.’

In his letter, Lilley says he sympathises with the philosophy behind
moves to extend export controls. But he has ruled out any change because
of the difficulty of monitoring exports. He fears that setting up unenforceable
controls would weaken the controls already in place.

The issue came to a head two years ago when Lizzie, the oldest fossil
reptile in the world, went up for sale. The Stuttgart Natural History Museum
was ready to buy the 338-million-year-old fossil from the professional collector
Stan Wood. A committee of experts met in Whitehall, discussed Lizzie’s merits
as an item of national heri tage and decided to recommend delaying export
while the National Museums of Scotland tried to raise the money to buy Lizzie.
It was then that the DTI said it did not have the power to prevent the fossil
from being exported.

In the event, the Stuttgart museum gave the Scots time to raise funds
and Lizzie stayed in Scotland. Ian Rolfe, the geologist at the National
Museums of Scotland who raised the alarm over Lizzie, says he proved then
that it was practical if not legal, to control the export of geological
material. ‘The DTI needs to say why it is impractical,’ says Rolfe. ‘It
is no more difficult for a fossil than a painting. This problem is not going
to go away.’

Lilley’s decision is a snub for the Office of Arts and Libraries, which
asked for controls to be extended after the DTI ruled that Lizzie was not
subject to existing regulations. It also leaves the government with out
an agreed position in European discussions to establish a common set of
export regulations for items considered part of a country’s heritage. While
the OAL is negotiating in Europe, the DTI has to approve any change to Britain’s
regulations.

Recommendations on when to delay granting an export order are made by
the OAL’s Reviewing Committee on the Export of Works of Art. But although
the office says natural items are a subject for ‘continuing discussion’
with the DTI, it has excluded them from a review of the committee’s work
commissioned last month.