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Fossil smugglers and meteorite thieves who make off with Australia’s
‘natural heritage’ could soon find their activities hampered if the government
heeds calls to tighten up export controls. Pressure to get tough on international
fossil thieves has grown steadily along with the prices collectors pay for
top-grade specimens.

The issue has come to a head over a piece of moon rock now in the hands
of a private collector in the US. The 19-gram meteorite was found by a collector
near Calcalong Creek, northeast of Perth in Western Australia. It was described
in the journal Nature last year by Delores Hill and William Boynton of the
Lunar and Planetary Laboratory of the University of Arizona. They concluded
that the stone is a fragment of the moon, one of only a dozen found on Earth
and the first dis-covered outside Antarctica.

The meteorite is now in the hands of Robert Haag, a collector whose
name also appeared on the Nature paper. Haag says he bought the specimen
from a dealer. But meteorites found in Western Australia are the property
of the Crown and can be exported only for scientific purposes, with a special
permit. No such permit was issued.

Haag has openly advertised the stone in his catalogue and is not sympathetic
to calls by scientists at the Western Australian Museum in Perth for the
return of the meteorite. ‘If the Western Australian Museum thinks that the
rock came from there . . . why don’t they go out and find one themselves?’
he said last week on Australian television.

The state’s arts minister, Kay Hallahan, wrote to her federal counterpart,
Wendy Fatin, last week, urging her to retrieve the meteorite and to prosecute
any Australians who assist in the illegal export of meteorites. ‘The meteorites
are important natural treasures which should not be plundered by overseas
interests,’ she wrote.

Meanwhile, a year-long police investigation into the possible theft
of numerous Australian meteors, including the moon rock, is winding up.
‘It is very disappointing,’ says the investigating officer Garry Noble.
‘We can’t prove that Haag’s meteorite landed in Australia and we can’t prove
when it was exported, so there is insufficient evidence to prosecute.’

Investigators are having better luck in the case of a 600-million-year-old
fossil stolen last year from the Flinders Ranges National Park in South
Australia (This Week, 27 July 1991). Don McCulloch of the federal police
in South Australia reports that the 1-tonne chunk of quartzite – an impression
of an ancient relative of jellyfish – has been traced to a museum near Tokyo.
Negotiations for its return are under way. An Australian will probably be
charged with the theft.

The issue of theft of natural treasures has reached a peak just as the
National Cultural Heritage Committee is finalising an extensive report on
how to protect items such as meteors, fossils and Aboriginal art.

The report will recommend ways to beef up the legislation that protects
meteors and fossils and to clarify procedures police should follow in raids.
The government is expected to act quickly on the recommendations.

‘These guys are getting away with blue murder,’ says Phil Creaser, of
the Cultural Heritage Committee. ‘We want to nip them off in the bud.’