Export, CITES, ivory bans and the Lacey Act

Two questions decide whether a specimen can move: did the country of origin allow it to leave, and is the material a regulated wildlife product now. Fossils fail the first question in China, Mongolia, Brazil, Argentina, Alberta and (for vertebrates) Morocco and India; they pass it in the US (private land), the UK, Germany, France, Madagascar (with export paperwork), Russia (with a Ministry of Culture certificate for significant items) and most of the rest. The importing country rarely checks; the seizure comes when the origin country asks.

CITES (the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species) regulates listed living species and their parts. Fossils are outside it except where a listing says otherwise. Modern shells and corals are inside it: giant clams (Tridacna, Hippopus), queen conch (Strombus / Aliger gigas) and chambered nautilus (all Nautilus species) are Appendix II, as are all stony corals (Scleractinia), black corals, blue coral, organ-pipe and fire corals — dead skeleton included. Appendix II means an export permit from the origin country and, in the EU, an import permit. Fossil coral and fossil nautiloids are exempt; a modern nautilus shell in a fossil dealer's cabinet is not.

Ivory: elephant is Appendix I and commercial international trade is closed; the US allows only narrow antique and pre-Act exemptions under the Endangered Species Act and African Elephant Conservation Act rules (the 2016 near-total ban). Walrus, narwhal and sperm whale ivory fall under the Marine Mammal Protection Act; hippopotamus is Appendix II. Mammoth and mastodon ivory are not CITES-listed and are legal federally, but New York, California, New Jersey, Hawaii, Nevada, Illinois and others ban their sale to stop laundering; Washington and Oregon ban elephant and other listed species with mammoth treated differently in each. eBay and Etsy prohibit all ivory including mammoth.

The Lacey Act makes it a US federal offence to import, sell or transport wildlife, fish or plants taken or exported in violation of another country's law or a US state's law. It does not cover fossils or minerals (they are not wildlife), but it does cover the modern shells, corals and ivory above, and the fines and forfeitures are serious. Amber is outside CITES and the Lacey Act; Myanmar amber carries sanctions and ethical questions instead.

The record fields that answer these questions are country of origin, export permit number and country, import date and import documentation, and the material and category. Stratum's Market gate reads them: blocked for elephant, walrus and whale ivory and for fossils from the closed-export countries; warned for modern coral, listed shells and mammoth ivory; and the certificate prints the permit numbers it has.