SteadyDigginTabs said:
I'm planning a trip to Murano Italy and was thinking how nice it would be to do some dirt fishing while I'm there.
Does anyone have experience with this or maybe know where I can start to find some info on local laws and regulations?
Thanks.
Well there has been attempts to make compendiums of the laws of various European countries. Primarily by folks from the UK (where md'ing is historically entrenched) that plan to go to the mainland Europe and detect. Thus attempts have been made to compile easy-to-reference lists. So travelers can just look through an alphabetic list, and know if they can or can't detect. Great idea, right ?
So how to make such lists should be just as easy: You just pick up the phone, or send an email, and ask. Ask a border consulate, ask a lawyer there, ask at the hotel you intend to stay at (who, in turn, passes your question on to an archie), etc... After all, you "can't be too safe", right ?
But here's where it gets funky : There are multiple European countries, where the answers that eventually got on such lists, is ... uh ... downright dire. And you'll notice that various answers, if ever couched in terms of actual laws, are usually based on antiquities statutes. Ie.: so no one goes raiding the pyramids, blah blah. Or exporting gold bars across state lines. Or shipwreck salvor laws, etc... And the question lands on someone's desk, who couches the answer in terms of such stuff.
No different than if you asked enough purist archies in the USA, you'd likewise from someone to think that ARPA applies to everything and anything. And ... presto, you have your answer. Meanwhile, md'rs who were already there, are left scratching their heads saying "since when ?".
Also: Anything dire you may find on such lists, may only apply to federal land. Or public land. But have no bearing at all on private land (farmers fields with permission). But do the compendiums differentiate all these nuances ? No. They just re-print something passed down to the "pressing question" they received 2+ decades ago.
