Shell collecting can be an illegal activity these days?Exaggerated laws in my opinion

[waltb887]

Hi everybody, I'm new to this forum. at the moment I'm living in the Philippines and I'm a amazed at the pieces & the beauty of small and big shells and dead corals that i find in the island where i am living. shells & corals of all kinds , of all sizes brought by the sea directly to shore.....here in pic im showing some shells in particular Tridacna Squamosa , officially endangered and on the shell prohibited list ( i discovered after) . CITES however permits the importation of tridacna (no more than 3 per person) Look in other pictures what the municipality of the place where i am living does with tridacna squamosa. they use it to decorate boardwalks, gardens etc , they also eat the meat of this shell on a regular basis (never eaten it but i ve been offered to buy it for a bit more than 1 US $ each and im sure the price was inflated). there are officially very harsh regulations in place in the Philippines that make no distinctions apparently between coral and shell poachers and a beachcomber. i found laws by browsing online that punish the collection of this kind of shells and 20 + other types with up to 20 yrs in prison and big fines?? really? and for corals(even dead) fines are huge on the paper and prison penalties are even higher. i think a distinction and allowance must be made by the government avoiding to punish seashell collectors and beachcombers and maybe putting a limit of i dont know 10 kg of stuff. somewhere i had read that this distintction had been made but i found no evidence of that.
I think the laws in place are exaggerated and risky for the beachcomber only to find they indeed sell coral neckalces in shops at malls all over the Philippines and the officially forbidden shells too. remember that possession of corals(live, dead, even rocks, even farmed) is illegal in the philippines unless you hold a scientist permit so why do they sell corals in shops? hypocrisy, lol. I was thinking of bringing a few shells to my home country when i go there but i dont want to feel hostage of government officials here. in my opinion , maybe i go against the "politically correct" wave this is exaggerated. shell collecting (even on the beach) is nice and harmless to nature. there are millions of these shells here literally, even the ones the government wants to make you believe that they are endangered. anyway let me know if you want what you think about this, i like my shells