DEFRA

CITES-listed natural history specimens will no longer be able to pass through Dover or the Eurotunnel in the event of a No deal Brexit, the government has warned.

Art market trade bodies are commissioning a survey to assess the potential financial impact on buyers, sellers and collectors of antique ivory of a law that will usher in a near-total ban on the UK ivory trade.

The Queen has formally agreed to make the ivory bill, which proposes a near-total ban on the trade in ivory, into an Act of Parliament.

Amendments to the government’s ivory bill, which proposes a near-total ban on the trade in ivory, have not been included following a House of Lords debate.

A group of members of the House of Lords have requested changes to the wording of the ivory bill ahead of a debate in the upper house, due to begin this afternoon.

BADA and other trade bodies have raised half the money needed for a judicial review of the ivory ban. Here, BADA’s chairman Michael Cohen argues the battle is not lost and why dealers should continue to support, financially and otherwise, the trade bodies’ efforts.

The ivory bill will be discussed in detail by 19 MPs as it reaches committee stage in parliament today.

The bill that will mean a near total ban on the sale of ivory passed its second reading in parliament with unanimous support last night.

Antiques dealer Michael Baggott has highlighted on national television the huge amount of bureaucracy that will ensue when the proposed ivory ban becomes law.

The government will launch its Ivory Bill in parliament today in a move that environment secretary Michael Gove described as “one of the toughest bans on ivory sales in the world”.

An idea that began life in 2015 with a Tory government manifesto pledge for a total ban on the UK trade in ivory has finally taken shape, though not as draconian as originally pitched and not yet set in legislative stone.

Michael Gove MP has said he would reconsider introducing a pledge for a total ivory ban.

Art and antiques trade associations are preparing to “forge new relationships” with the incoming government, in particular relating to the trade of antiques containing ivory.

A leading CITES lawyer has criticised DEFRA’s “wholesale failure” to alert the public to law changes, after a court fined a jeweller £2000 for selling antique tiger claw pendants.

THE Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) have issued further important guidelines regarding the sale of antique rhinoceros horn.