BEIJING, Aug. 7 (Xinhuanet) -- China will tighten control over the exports of fossils
and a regulation will be formulated to this end, according to the
Ministry of Land and Resources.
"The ministry and the General Administration of Customs will jointly
produce a special regulation on fossil exports, the first of its kind in China,
before the end of September," said Jiang Jianjun, director of the ministry's
geological environment department.
Jiang was quoted by Thursday's China Daily as saying that the export of
fossils would only be allowed with the approval of government departments, and
the approvals would not be hard to get.
According to Jiang, China has improved its management of fossils in the
past five years, adopting its first national regulation for their protection and
establishing 30 fossil preservation zones.
However, various reports contend many valuable animal fossils have been,
and are still being, smuggled out of China, though no accurate figures are
available. They include dinosaur egg fossils found in northeast China's Liaoning
Province and dinosaur fossils found in southwest China's Guizhou Province.
It was really hard to forbid illegal transactions of fossils promptly and
effectively as there were no clear-cut operational standards to distinguish
valuable fossils from those not so precious, said Jiang.
"We should try our best to keep as many of these fossils in ourcountry as
possible until more effective measures are found," Jiang added. Enditem