in Jurassic and Cretaceous Stratigraphy

Earth Science Frontiers, Vol. 17, Special Issue, Aug. 2010 ISSN 1005-2321
World Heritage on Sale in England: State Supported Trade in Global
Palaeonto-Logical Heritage and Its Consequences
394
K.N. Page
School of Geography, Earth and Environmental Sciences, University of Plymouth, Drakes Circus, Plymouth, PL4 8AA, UK
(E-mail: kpage@plymouth.ac.uk)
The Dorset and East Devon World Heritage Site
was listed by UNESCO in 1999, one of its primary
features being a remarkably complete Jurassic sequence,
well exposed in coastal cliff and foreshore exposures.
The area has been important in the development of
Jurassic science and includes the historical type locality
of the Kimmeridgian Stage, the historical type area of
the Portlandian‚ Stage’ (now assigned to the Tithonian)
and a potential GSSP for the Oxfrodian Stage. The area
also has a long history of recreational and commercial
fossil collecting, which at times significantly conflicts
with its sceintific use (Page and Wimbledon 2009).
Rather than attempt to manage this potential con-
flict within existing legal and administrative frame-
works, the site administrators (local government
authority Dorset County Council and the then national
conservation agency for England, English Nature,
adopted a voluntary Code of Conduct for fossil
collectors – with no enforceable legal status. A key
feature of this Code is a voluntary reporting scheme,
which allows fossil collectors to record certain
categories of find, and in the process be given legal title
to the find. The collector then has the right to sell the
specimen nationally or internationally, should a UK
public institutional fail to raise any asking price.
Virtually the only mechanism invoked, therefore, to
help retain some of the collected specimens for display
or as part of a national heritage is financial, where
public museums in the UK are assumed to be willing
and able to bid against private and foreign individuals
and institutions in an international market place, to
purchase key specimens. The recovery of specimens
under the ‘West Dorset Fossil Collecting Code of
Conduct’, however, has been very poor and a scientific
analysis over the fist 3 years of implementation
suggested that although at least 1300 scientifically
important specimens might have been expected to have
been found, the Code recorded only 36 - and later
results are not much better (Page and Wimbledon 2008).
Not surprisingly, the Code is very popular amongst the
commercial fossil collectors that exploit the area to
supply an international market place, as it allows them
to pursue their business interests with the minimum of
state intervention.
The Code is promoted through a close
-collaboration between Dorset County Council admini-
strators and commercial fossil collectors and dealers.
Both have argued that that real issue is the failure of
public institutions to provide the same resources for
purchasing geological materials as they do, for instance,
for works of art. Unfortunately this argument is deeply
flawed, as the works of art in question are general
already in private ownership, whereas the fossils from
the coast are often owned by national heritage organi-
sations. This approach creates a bizarre scenario in
which the state is expected to buy back what it has, in
effect, given away. In 2008 this is exactly what
happened, when the UK’s, national state lottery
awarded Dorset County Council’s museum service
around £250,000 to purchase some of the fossils that its
own World Heritage management group had ’given
away’ to fossil collectors and commercial traders.
It is perhaps understandable that a local govern-
ment body should seek to promote the local economy in
whatever way it can. But when this policy has the
potential to conflict with national legal and policies – in
this case in the field of nature conservation – surely the
state should intervene? In West Dorset and East Devon,
however, rather than invoking national legislation to
protect geological heritage, the governmental conser-
vation administrator – now Natural England – has
participated in this process. The most striking example
concerns the discovery of a rare plesiosaur skeleton
within its own Axmouth-Lyme Regis National Nature
Reserve in 2008. Rather than initiating a scientific
excavation and placing the specimen in a public
museum, Natural England permitted it to be removed
and ‚gave’ the specimen to the finder, the proprietor of
a fossil shop in Lyme Regis – presumably now a
candidate for ‚buy back’ using state lottery money.
This direct participation by a state conservation
organisation in the commercial exploitation of a World
Heritage site is a very worrying development – espe-
cially when supported by the provision of state money
to buy specimens collected. Does UNESCO really
appreciate what is happening in the Jurassic Coast
World Heritage site and what are the implications for
other World heritage sites globally and indeed many
other key Jurassic palaeontological localities? Could
this undermine some of the hard work carried out
elsewhere in the raising of public awarenes of the
scientific and heritage value of fossils, as opposed to
their commercial? Or do we simply have to accept that
our research material is simply another commodity to
trade in, along with stocks, shares and equity and in
addition to raising grants for research, will we also have