If you want to come to Brazil to collect live shells, and try to get an official permit simply
forget it. Due to bio-piracy it is absolutely forbidden to take shells (with animal) out of the
Country. I believe nowadays it is a Worldwide rule, no Country would give a permit for shell
collecting at all. As I wrote before, if you try you might not get even a Visa approved.

By the way, I did not find in Internet any specific laws about shell ban in Costa Rica, does anyone
know something about that?

Marcus

________________________________________
De: Conchologists List [mailto:[log in to unmask]] Em nome de Stemke Douglas
Enviada em: terça-feira, 20 de fevereiro de 2007 13:50
Para: [log in to unmask]
Assunto: Re: Thanks for the answers to my redundant question!!

Hi Ross.

    I feel your pain, but I do think there is another side to the coin.

    I have worked in and around Biotechnology and have seen many a product produced as the result of
some bio-compound being isolated from nations that are relatively poor; plant products from
Madagascar, Fungal or Bacterial genes from South America, Biodegradable insecticides from the
Caribbean, other biocompounds from sponges from the Indo-Pacific, and antibiotics from places like
the 'Red Sea' (Erythromycin).

   Biotech companies have gotten rich off of these products and more often than not haven't returned
a penny to the original country while making millions off their manufacture.  That leaves these
nations very protective of their natural resources.  At least in some cases, not all of course, I
think part of the bans we are seening on shelling is a knee-jerk reaction to what they see as big
western nations plundering their natural resources.

   So picking up that animal-free cone shell in Costa Rica probably seems as harmless to most of us
as taking a breath of air (and really it should), but from another perspective it symbolizes
something sinister that has taken place for a long time now.

  Pitty; I wouldn't mind shelling in Costa Rica either.

Doug

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