The negotiations that led Belgium to return a valuable pterosaur skull to Brazil are a reflection of the unprecedented mobilization of the national scientific community against the illegal departure of fossils from the country.
Sources directly linked to the transaction, which took about a year to complete, state that the outcome of the case was greatly influenced by the international attention triggered by the campaign for the repatriation of the ubirajara jubatusthe exotic Brazilian dinosaur that Germany refuses to return.
The negotiation with the Belgians also marked a turning point in the stance of Brazilian diplomacy on the subject, with representatives of the Itamaraty adopting a much harsher tone in the conversations.
One of the arguments on the Brazilian side was precisely the heavy reputational damage illustrated in the case of ubirajara jubatus and the campaign #UbirajaraBelongsBR (Ubirajara belongs to Brazil), which placed Germany and the Natural History Museum in Karlsruhe as targets of international criticism.
The diplomats also signaled the possibility of legal liability for the “private collector” who supplied the pterosaur fossil to Belgium’s Royal Institute of Natural Sciences.
Recourse to the figure of an independent collector is a well-known method used by museums and universities abroad to freely buy Brazilian fossils, the sale of which is strictly prohibited by national legislation.
Another common justification for keeping Brazilian fossils abroad is the claim that the material would have been collected before 1942, when legislation began to dictate that they are part of the Union’s heritage.
The negotiation for the repatriation of the pterosaur skull, conducted by the Brazilian Embassy in Brussels, shows less and less willingness to accept this type of discourse, both in diplomacy and among the scientists themselves.
Fossil trafficking is an old and well-known problem for Brazilian paleontologists, who are often forced to travel to Europe or the United States in order to study prehistoric animals that lived in what is now Brazil.
Due to the fear of retaliation on the part of powerful research institutions in developed countries — ranging from academic issues to difficulties in career progression — there was still some reluctance on the part of the community to speak openly about the numerous episodes related to the exploration of Brazilian fossils. .
The progressive change of attitude of Brazilian researchers, who courageously risk their skin in the defense of the national heritage, was exposed in the now famous episode of the ubirajara jubatus.
Although it lived around 110 million years ago in the Crato region of northeastern Brazil, the dinosaur fossil was irregularly removed from the country. The material ended up at the Natural History Museum in Karlsruhe, Germany, where it was studied without the participation of any Brazilian scientist.
The situation, which disrespects several points of Brazilian legislation and international conventions for the protection of cultural and historical heritage, immediately led to a great mobilization of the national paleontological community on social networks.
The movement gained a lot of support from scientists abroad and ended up reverberating in the Brazilian and international press.
As a result, the scientific merit of the announcement —the first non-avian dinosaur found with its feathers preserved in Latin America—, in December 2020, ended up being eclipsed by the allegations of the illicit origin of the material studied.
Although the German museum continues to refuse to return the fossil to Brazil, the #UbirajaraBelongsBR campaign has already achieved several concrete results.
Due to evidence of irregular collection of the material studied, the specialized journal Cretaceous Research ended up retracting the article (withdrawing its publication) with the description of the species.
Months later, in the face of continued pressure, the publication announced an update to its guidelines, stating that it would no longer accept fossils “suspected of having been illegally collected and exported from their countries of origin, with uncertain provenance or deposited in private collections”.
The climate of mobilization and demands of Brazilian paleontologists also managed to guarantee the repatriation of the oldest spider recorded in the Americas, the Cretapalpus vittari.
Named after Pabllo Vittar, the species and 35 other fossils of Brazilian spiders were amicably returned by the University of Kansas in October 2021.
Despite the advances, there is still a long way to go to safeguard the Brazilian fossiliferous heritage.
In addition to negotiations for the repatriation of what was illegally taken from the country, it is necessary to act to monitor and curb irregular extraction: a valuable international market that takes direct advantage of the poverty and social vulnerability of the extraction zones.
Although dinosaur and pterosaur fossils are a powerful instrument for disseminating science, attracting visitors to museums and generating increased revenues, they are not enough to compensate for the unprecedented shortage of public investment in Brazilian science.