Destroying artwork

[David]

Originally Posted by Sylektis

http://www.theguardian.com/environme...ivory-poaching
"Philippe Martin the minister for ecology, durable development and energy, added that all ivory seized in France in future would be destroyed, apart from samples kept for scientific or educational purposes and those items that might help trace traffickers."

It looks like the vast majority of what is being destroyed in this article is recently poached raw ivory with a few statues and such made from it, not antiques that hold a cultural, anthropological or archeological value beyond the materials. I believe as collectors it is the latter we should place our attention on with the intent of creating exceptions to the laws in the case of pre-CITES or antique ivory. I seems it would be a losing battle to try to sway these authorities from this kind of destruction of obviously poached ivory and frankly i don't have a issue with that per se. It is the culturally valuable antiques that i don't want to see destroyed and i believe we have a logical and supportable case to be made for the protection of such specimens from destruction.