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If the 8th is not suitable, perhaps you could contact Bob Cunningham, the Chief Natural Resources Adviser in ODM, who is organising my appointments in ODM on either the 6th or 7th. Unfortunately I have not yet heard from Cunningham so I am not sure which half-day (I can only afford a morning there) he has selected. Once this is known this would give at least an alternative date for our meeting.
Turning to your para. 3 regarding ivory in particular and the distinction between worked and unworked, whilst I concede that the Convention makes no distinction, in practice I think it is true to say that many countries (except perhaps the U.S.) are in fact having to make a distinction on the basis of practicality. As I said in my previous letter, one can see little basic objection to the scheduling of unworked ivory and this thinking would appear to be in line with that implicit in the U.K. Endangered Species (Import and Export) Act, 1976, Schedule 3, 5, copy attached refers. The practical problems facing the controls on worked ivory are pretty profound. I will not attempt to detail them herein but, apart from the difficulties in tracing the country from which the ivory originated, there can be so many intervening stages/countries involved and, of course, there is a factor of age which has also to be calculated into the equation. our own case we also have a political problem in that not a little of our worked ivory is imported from China and in this connection it would be almost impossible to obtain any firm information on original source or certification.
In
I think it is also true to say that in the U.K. such items, and indeed let us say, worked crocodile skins, i.e. handbags, shoes, etc., are excluded from the Endangered Species Act and covered by an Open General Import Licence. At the present moment my thinking is inclined towards scheduling unworked ivory - or simply prepared ivory and unworked rare reptile skins, cf para. 15 of Schedule 3 attached, and then, if need be, backing this view by the use of the specific excluder clause in our legislation which enables HE to exempt any person or scheduled species, etc., from the conditions of the Ordinance. This could be done by specifically excluding bona fide personal/household effects made up or worked in scheduled species parts. Perhaps you would like to cogitate on this for a while and perhaps throw the idea across to others who may be able to contribute their views and then we can discuss in more detail when I see you in September.
Turning back to my letter of 29th April, page 3, and Miss Camille Tsu, I did promise to keep you informed of the outcome of the intended cruelty prosecution against the licensee of the Shing Lee Hong. Unfortunately the process of law tends to be slower than we would wish here largely due to the number of cases before the courts and the actual court case was not heard until the 11th of this month. Three charges were levelled, two of which were successful and the third dismissed. The two that were successful were for skinning snakes alive, for which a fine of HK$450 was levied, and the second was for undersized cages, for which a fine of $350 was levied. The charge dismissed related to a sick owl which was kept in a cage with other owls. In addition the licensee was given a serious warning by the magistrate regarding any future charges of a similar nature. You may wish to inform Mr. Colin Platt accordingly.
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