Metal Detecting Laws in French Southern Territories

A complete rule for ordinary lost-item detecting across the territory could not be confirmed.

• This record covers the five districts administered as Terres australes et antarctiques françaises (French Southern and Antarctic Lands, TAAF). The administration describes legislative specialty with specified automatic categories. A metropolitan detector rule is not assumed to apply unchanged. The Ministry index identifies Code du patrimoine (Heritage Code) articles L.770-1 and R.770-5 to R.770-9, but their current complete territorial extension and adaptation text was not obtained.
• Arrêté n° 2022-102 (access, anchoring and stationing order) article 3 requires the prefect’s prior land-access authorization in Crozet, Kerguelen, Saint-Paul and Amsterdam, and the Scattered Islands, without prejudice to special protected-site access rules. Exceptions cover public-service missions, including authorized scientific research and logistical support; sovereignty missions; and force majeure, breakdown or medical emergency. Access authorization is not detector, excavation or removal authorization.
• For Terre Adélie, article 29 separately requires prior land-access authorization, without prejudice to Environmental Code Book VII, particularly L712-1 and R712-9. Its exceptions cover public-service missions, including authorized or declared scientific activities, logistical support, sovereignty missions, force majeure, breakdown and medical emergency. The captured agency guidance distinguishes environmental declaration from authorization according to impact; it does not approve every activity.
• The captured January 2022 Code minier (Mining Code), articles L661-1 to L661-3, extends mining law subject to Antarctic measures, territorial adaptations and stricter environmental rules. Later amendments remain unresolved. Mineral-resource activity, archaeological searching, excavation and searching for modern manufactured losses are distinct questions; no general detector permission is inferred from an access order or an older mining version.

Beach access does not establish permission to detect or recover objects.

• Arrêté n° 2022-102 (access, anchoring and stationing order) article 3 requires the prefect’s prior land-access authorization in Crozet, Kerguelen, Saint-Paul and Amsterdam, and the Scattered Islands, without prejudice to special protected-site access rules. Exceptions cover public-service missions, including authorized scientific research and logistical support; sovereignty missions; and force majeure, breakdown or medical emergency. Access authorization is not detector, excavation or removal authorization.
• For Terre Adélie, article 29 separately requires prior land-access authorization, without prejudice to Environmental Code Book VII, particularly L712-1 and R712-9. Its exceptions cover public-service missions, including authorized or declared scientific activities, logistical support, sovereignty missions, force majeure, breakdown and medical emergency. The captured agency guidance distinguishes environmental declaration from authorization according to impact; it does not approve every activity.
• Southern-district shores lie within the reserve coverage described by its administering agency; Glorieuses has a separately identified 2021 reserve, and other Scattered Islands require their own current instrument checks. The 2016 Southern-reserve amendment adds marine provisions, while the complete 2022 amended regime is missing. Land access, anchoring, marine prospecting and taking material are distinct activities.
• The general maritime cultural-property procedure and historical maritime Heritage Code capture do not settle the complete current TAAF extension or ordinary beach-loss recovery. No right to beach access, digging, salvage, title or removal is inferred.

Ordinary detector use at protected heritage places remains unconfirmed.

• The captured Arrêté n° 2020-17 (heritage and toponymy commission order), article 3, requires consultation of the commission before the administrator issues excavation or test-pit authorizations under Title II of loi n° 56-1106 (law protecting monuments, sites and historical objects and regulating excavations). Article 15 expressly repeals arrêté n° 2020-04. Later amendments, the full current 1956-law chain and the Heritage Code extension remain unverified. Archaeological excavation authorization is not a demonstrated permit requirement for every modern-loss detector sweep.
• The captured agency descriptions identify protected heritage management in the Southern districts and Scattered Islands, and historic sites and monuments in Terre Adélie under Antarctic arrangements. Current designation, boundary, management-plan and access conditions remain unit-specific dependencies; no site coordinates are supplied.
• Arrêté n° 2022-102 (access, anchoring and stationing order) article 3 requires the prefect’s prior land-access authorization in Crozet, Kerguelen, Saint-Paul and Amsterdam, and the Scattered Islands, without prejudice to special protected-site access rules. Exceptions cover public-service missions, including authorized scientific research and logistical support; sovereignty missions; and force majeure, breakdown or medical emergency. Access authorization is not detector, excavation or removal authorization.
• For Terre Adélie, article 29 separately requires prior land-access authorization, without prejudice to Environmental Code Book VII, particularly L712-1 and R712-9. Its exceptions cover public-service missions, including authorized or declared scientific activities, logistical support, sovereignty missions, force majeure, breakdown and medical emergency. The captured agency guidance distinguishes environmental declaration from authorization according to impact; it does not approve every activity.

A complete ordinary-detecting rule for the territory’s different protected areas remains unconfirmed.

• The reserve manager identifies the Réserve naturelle nationale des Terres australes françaises (French Southern Lands National Nature Reserve) across Crozet, Kerguelen, Saint-Paul and Amsterdam, with general, integral-protection and enhanced-marine regimes. Its guidance describes integral-zone access and human-activity restrictions with force-majeure, sovereignty and prefectural derogation provisions. The full current 2006 decree as amended in 2016 and 2022 was not captured; an abbreviated plan is not used to erase exceptions or impose one rule everywhere.
• Glorieuses has a separate 2021 reserve. Europa, Bassas da India, Juan de Nova and Tromelin have unresolved material island-protection instruments; they are not silently covered by the Southern reserve. Scientific-site decisions and current renewal or expiry also remain unresolved.
• For Terre Adélie, the administration identifies Antarctic Specially Protected Areas 120 and 166 and historic sites and monuments 46, 47, 48 and 81. Complete current plans, French implementing measures and exact detector or recovery conditions remain missing. The international Protocol’s mineral-resource prohibition has a scientific-research exception; it does not itself classify every manufactured lost object as a mineral resource. No Australian domestic rules are imported from its agency’s explanation.
• Arrêté n° 2022-102 (access, anchoring and stationing order) article 3 requires the prefect’s prior land-access authorization in Crozet, Kerguelen, Saint-Paul and Amsterdam, and the Scattered Islands, without prejudice to special protected-site access rules. Exceptions cover public-service missions, including authorized scientific research and logistical support; sovereignty missions; and force majeure, breakdown or medical emergency. Access authorization is not detector, excavation or removal authorization.
• For Terre Adélie, article 29 separately requires prior land-access authorization, without prejudice to Environmental Code Book VII, particularly L712-1 and R712-9. Its exceptions cover public-service missions, including authorized or declared scientific activities, logistical support, sovereignty missions, force majeure, breakdown and medical emergency. The captured agency guidance distinguishes environmental declaration from authorization according to impact; it does not approve every activity.

A general rule for detecting in territorial woodland could not be confirmed.

• The reserve manager describes native Phylica arborea woodland and restoration on Amsterdam; the Scattered Islands descriptions also include wooded vegetation. The territory is not treated as having no forests. These ecological descriptions do not establish a separate public-forest detector regime or ownership of every wooded parcel.
• Arrêté n° 2022-102 (access, anchoring and stationing order) article 3 requires the prefect’s prior land-access authorization in Crozet, Kerguelen, Saint-Paul and Amsterdam, and the Scattered Islands, without prejudice to special protected-site access rules. Exceptions cover public-service missions, including authorized scientific research and logistical support; sovereignty missions; and force majeure, breakdown or medical emergency. Access authorization is not detector, excavation or removal authorization.
• The current reserve or island protection rules, vegetation disturbance, access conditions and any applicable land-property instrument must be resolved for the actual woodland. No all-dig ban, ordinary detector permission or ownership right is inferred from a restoration plan or mineral-collection summary.

Private-land consent alone does not establish a complete detector or recovery right.

• The territory’s lack of permanent residents and its central administration do not prove every parcel or object is unowned or freely accessible. The captured 2016 order cites arrêté n° 2000-35 (order on land-property and buildings), but its full current text and any applicable grants, leases or private rights were not obtained.
• Arrêté n° 2022-102 (access, anchoring and stationing order) article 3 requires the prefect’s prior land-access authorization in Crozet, Kerguelen, Saint-Paul and Amsterdam, and the Scattered Islands, without prejudice to special protected-site access rules. Exceptions cover public-service missions, including authorized scientific research and logistical support; sovereignty missions; and force majeure, breakdown or medical emergency. Access authorization is not detector, excavation or removal authorization.
• For Terre Adélie, article 29 separately requires prior land-access authorization, without prejudice to Environmental Code Book VII, particularly L712-1 and R712-9. Its exceptions cover public-service missions, including authorized or declared scientific activities, logistical support, sovereignty missions, force majeure, breakdown and medical emergency. The captured agency guidance distinguishes environmental declaration from authorization according to impact; it does not approve every activity.
• Landholder consent, prefectural access approval, archaeological authorization, physical recovery and ownership of a find are distinct. The historical metropolitan detector procedure’s written-owner-consent language is not transplanted to TAAF without its current extension and adaptations. No private-land exemption from heritage, reserve or Antarctic rules was established.