Title: Message
Fossil regulation? Sounds just about as
exciting as watching paint dry? I don't think
so!
I've started to set
up a blog, focusing on the management of fossil resources (regulatory
models) from 6 different countries: Germany (Bavaria mainly), Canada, the US,
the UK, South Africa and Australia. I'm also interetsed in (but didn't
visit) places like China, Morocco, Russia, Denmark.....whatever comes
up.
What has really
interested me was trying to uncover how certain ways of managing
fossills have emerged in different countries, and I am very grateful
to all the members of the 'fossil community' who helped me out and gave me the
time to chat about various issues....the thesis is being
written!
What do I mean by regulation? Well, not just laws
and rules, but regulation in the broad sense of governance and really just
'influencing the flow of events' in some way to achieve a desired outcome.
Governments may regulate society through networks of laws and rules, but people
also influence and regulate each other. I think the fossil world exhibits
all kinds of reguation, and while it is important to understand the laws of a
region, how they actually work and are enforced (or not) is also
fascinating. Sometimes informal regualation takes place, people find ways
of solving problems that doesn't involve law, I find these cases
particularly interesting.
in 2004 and 2005 I
visited a number of countries as part of my fieldwork for my PhD. I have
been somewhat swamped by the wealth of data I collected, yet I find I'm still
trying to uncover vairous facts and figures and have questions to be
asked. So I thought as I write up these particular chapters (on the
countries) maybe I could draw on some of the knowledge of the fossil people
out there and perhaps contribute by sharing some of the facts and interesting
details I found out.
Having followed a
number of palaeontology mailing lists I think there might be some interest in
this field, and if the interest continues I would be happy to expand the
blog.
I don't want to be
controversial for the sake of controversey so I'm trying to present items of
interest I have found during my research or areas I find puzzling, in a fair
way.
I'll try and post
regularly, depends on the interest and speed of discussions, and also supplement
the blog with pages containing information on the various countries and their
management of fossils. Don't expect a new country every week, I'm writing
between 4,000-9,000 words on each country (these are drafts, so a lot of it
might move to appendices but I like to work things through as thoroughly as
possible) and that takes a little while, but I write fairlyy quickly, once I
have the facts straight ;) so I hope to move fast enough to mantain
interest.
First off is
Germany, in particular Bavaria, which interested me. Most of the States in
Germany have rules and regulations for managing fossil resources, mainly based
on the Baden-Wurttemberg model, but Bavaria, with the amazinvg Solnhofen
Limestone, does not. Why? Who wields the
influence?
If you would like to
have a look at the blog (and maybe contribute :) ) go to http://fossilregulation.wordpress.com/
I've enabled the search engines but it will take a while for Google to find it,
so use the link. I'll try and add a comment a day for a while to get
it going.
I hope to see some
comments :)
cheers,
Jodie
PS: please
don't comment about creationism, young earth or intelligent design on this blog
unless it is really releva nt.
Jodie Houston
Regulatory Institutions
Network
Research School of Social
Sciences
Australian National
University
******Live fast, die young, leave a good
looking fossil******