This might clear the air on legal Ivorys:
DISCLAIMER: We have slightly simplified some of the federal government's requirements and definitions in order to provide an at-a-glance guide to a complicated area of the law. State laws on ivory vary widely, so if your goal is to confirm that your own ivory is legal, consider this guide a starting point rather than the final word.
Establishing Provenance
Unfortunately, there is no official "ivory certification board," nor can collectors simply show up at a Fish and Wildlife office to have their ivory assessed. Provenance is best established by assembling a paper trail, in the form of import records and bills of sale. For instance, another guest at the Chattanooga ROADSHOW, Kris from Humboldt, Tennessee, explained to Asian-arts appraiser
James Callahan that he was lucky enough to have a record of an appraisal of his ivory conducted in 1922, another acceptable form of documentation.
In general, these are the facts that are important in the eyes of the law:
- the country of origin
- the country of export
- the year in which the ivory was imported
- the specific port through which the ivory entered the U.S.
- whether the ivory is from an African or an Asian elephant
- whether the ivory is raw or worked
- the age of the ivory object at the time of import into the U.S.
Finally, if you don't intend to travel with or sell your ivory, it is probably not necessary to establish all the above. Says Mason, "There are no 'Rockefeller' ivory laws. You're not going to have the ivory police come in and haul you off." But if you do not wish to have your family's heirloom added to the heap of ivory confiscated by customs officials each year — much of which is not even necessarily illegal, only undocumented — forewarned is forearmed.
For more on elephant conservation and the owning and selling of ivory, see:
Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) The Web site of CITES, with specifics on signatory countries and how the Convention works.
Endangered Species Act (U.S. Code: Title 16, Ch. 35) Text of the of the federal ESA statute, on the Web site of the Cornell University Legal Information Institute.
African Elephant Conservation Act (U.S. Code: Title 16, Ch. 62) Text of the of the federal AECA statute, on the Web site of the Cornell University Legal Information Institute.
U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service, Division of International Conservation A government Web site with information about the Fish & Wildlife Service's species conservation programs.