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On our vacation in Tenerife we have found some very nice lavastones from the Teide Volcano and want to take them on our flight home (all within EU).

The problem is that our friends went to Egypt once, found some nice stones there and tried to take them home. But it turned out that this was illegal. Airport Security didn't just tell them that they couldn't take the stones home, they were also charged a fee of 2000$.

Is there a law prohibiting us from exporting lava rocks from Tenerife?

pnuts
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this.foo
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2 Answers2

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There's at least one article online saying it's illegal in protected areas around it, from the Independent:

Rock star: The volcanic attraction of Tenerife

Then, after a brief stop to allow the children to examine some lava shrapnel (it turned out that it was illegal to remove stones from these protected areas), we reached the vast caldera of Teide itself: a bleak, alien landscape, the soil too poor to support much more than bright-green moss.

Mark Mayo
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You cannot collect rocks, use a geological hammer, collect plants or wildlife anywhere in the National Park. About two years ago some Germans decided that the rules didn't apply to them, so they went to board a flight back to Munich with 500 grammes of rocks. They didn't leave Tenerife as they were stopped at the boarding gate, their bags opened and they were fined if I recall over 2000 euros EACH for removing rocks without a permit! You make the work of professional geologists who do need to collect specimens so much harder. Leave the rocks where they are. Tenerife IS NOT in the EU - it is an autonomous region and you are subject to the same restrictions when entering the EU as someone from say Australia.

user35118
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