Metal Detecting Laws in Gabon

The general rule for nonarchaeological target-recovery digging remains unconfirmed.

• Cultural-property excavation or test digging on land or underwater requires prior joint authorization from the authorities responsible for culture and scientific research; article 40 limits eligibility to scientific institutions or researchers working in Gabon with recognized competence and sufficient funding.
• Classified cultural property has separate alteration restrictions.

Excavations and test digging intended to uncover cultural property require scientific authorization.

• Cultural-property excavation or test digging on land or underwater requires prior joint authorization from the authorities responsible for culture and scientific research; article 40 limits eligibility to scientific institutions or researchers working in Gabon with recognized competence and sufficient funding.
• The rule concerns cultural-property excavations or test digging, including underwater work; it does not settle ordinary nonarchaeological target recovery.

The right to keep ordinary lost objects, treasure or accidental cultural finds could not be confirmed.

• Article 37 refers ownership of accidental movable finds to other legislation and allows the culture minister to claim them for public collections with agreed or expert-assessed compensation.
• Article 3’s inclusion of finds in the national cultural heritage is not treated as State ownership of every find.
• Old cultural wrecks have a separate State-ownership rule; ordinary lost items and treasure remain unresolved.

If a discovery may interest archaeology, prehistory or the historical or human sciences, stop work and report it immediately to the competent local administrative authority.

• Article 35 applies where the listed remains or other qualifying property are uncovered through work or any event; both the finder and owner of the immovable property bear the duty.
• This is the cultural-discovery duty; ordinary lost-property and noncultural treasure duties remain unconfirmed.

Reporting or return duties for ordinary lost property and noncultural treasure remain unconfirmed.

• The immediate reporting duty for qualifying cultural discoveries is separately evidenced.

A general rule for ordinary target-recovery digging on beaches and foreshore could not be confirmed.

• Cultural-property excavation or test digging on land or underwater requires prior joint authorization from the authorities responsible for culture and scientific research; article 40 limits eligibility to scientific institutions or researchers working in Gabon with recognized competence and sufficient funding.
• No permission to dig is inferred from ownership or an access right.
• Cultural-discovery duties and the separate old-wreck provisions can apply; beach access does not settle detecting permission.

Do not assume a right to keep wreck: cultural-wreck ownership and transfer rules require clarification.

• Law 2/94 article 38 assigns specified lake, lagoon, river or marine cultural wrecks found in territorial waters and lost over five years earlier to the State, with compensation provisions.
• The later CEMAC Code articles 307–308 assign archaeological, historical or artistic wreck with an unknown or untraceable owner to the State. Article 309 allows the maritime authority, with the culture authority, to transfer an isolated object to its salvager; otherwise a qualifying object may enter a public collection with compensation.
• The relationship between these rules, Gabon implementing measures and any entitlement for ordinary recent wreck remains unconfirmed; a salvage reward is not automatic finder ownership.

Report a maritime wreck to the competent maritime authority within 48 hours of discovery, or arrival at the first port if found at sea.

• Article 279 includes abandoned unseaworthy vessels/aircraft and cargo, specified abandoned maritime equipment and wreckage, and lost-possession objects stranded on the public maritime shore or found floating or recovered from the seabed and brought into territorial waters or the public maritime domain.
• Article 280 also requires putting the wreck in safety where possible. This is not authority for an archaeological excavation.
• Qualifying cultural discoveries also trigger the separate immediate stop-work and local-administrative-report duty in Law 2/94 article 35; do not treat 48 hours as postponing that duty.

Altering cultural property classified or proposed for classification requires culture-minister authorization.

• This row covers recovery that destroys, alters, transforms or moves the protected cultural property itself; it is not a permit for every detector search or every hole near a monument.
• Cultural-property excavation or test digging on land or underwater requires prior joint authorization from the authorities responsible for culture and scientific research; article 40 limits eligibility to scientific institutions or researchers working in Gabon with recognized competence and sufficient funding.

The captured national-park law penalizes unauthorized excavation; the current hobby-recovery authorization route and nature-reserve rules remain unconfirmed.

• For national parks, article 62 of Law 003/2007 penalizes all unauthorized excavation, prospecting, test digging or earthworks. Its wording is not limited to archaeological purposes or development projects.
• Excavating to recover a detector target falls within that broad excavation restriction in the captured national-park law. Detector sweeping is not expressly named; the recovery restriction must still be applied when assessing detecting that involves excavation.
• The captured 2017 ordinance amends specified articles and deletes article 10, among others, but does not list article 62 for amendment or deletion. Uncertainty over the ordinance’s continuing effect does not remove article 62 from the evidence.
• The authorization routes in the 2007 law and 2017 ordinance must be read alongside article 62. A current route authorizing ordinary hobby recovery has not been confirmed; no such permission is inferred from a research, tourism or earthworks provision.
• Nature reserves are a separate scope: the original Forest Code has access and conservation provisions for reserves, but the complete current regime and a general recovery rule for those reserves remain unconfirmed.

A general rule for ordinary target-recovery digging on public forests could not be confirmed.

• Cultural-property excavation or test digging on land or underwater requires prior joint authorization from the authorities responsible for culture and scientific research; article 40 limits eligibility to scientific institutions or researchers working in Gabon with recognized competence and sufficient funding.
• No permission to dig is inferred from ownership or an access right.
• The original Forest Code addresses forestry activities and limited customary uses by village communities; those provisions do not establish visitor detecting permission.
• The complete forest amendment/currentness chain remains unresolved.

A general rule for ordinary target-recovery digging on private land could not be confirmed.

• Cultural-property excavation or test digging on land or underwater requires prior joint authorization from the authorities responsible for culture and scientific research; article 40 limits eligibility to scientific institutions or researchers working in Gabon with recognized competence and sufficient funding.
• No permission to dig is inferred from ownership or an access right.
• Private ownership or the owner’s agreement is not evidence of authorization under cultural-property law.