Last week the Kenyan government burnt a huge stock of Ivory. Here's a link to footage of the multiple tusk bonfires: LINK
This is an impressive act but the question still remains as the the best course of action that governments should take with their siezed Ivory. Ivory is a commodity like anything else: sugar, coffee or chocolate. Supply and demand economics impact on its price. Will destroying a large amount of Ivory drive up price? This could have the knock on effect of increasing poaching as the rewards are greater. Alternatively, such a publicised display may drive down demand and so reduce poaching levels. The poaching networks are complex, crossing continents and with multiple levels and middlemen. Thus, it may be impossible to know the direct impact of Kenya's decision.
There are alternative paths that other Aftican governments have chosen. Under the supervision of CITES, four southern African countries (Botswana, Namibia, South Africa and Zimbabwe) carried out auctions to accredited buyers and raised $15.4 million for conservation. Most of this Ivory was legal Ivory, collected from elephants that had died naturally in national parks. I know private game reserves do the same, and a reserve close to my PhD field site flew about $4 million worth of rhino horn to a safe location. But is this type of sale right? Doesn't it just maintain a market for poached Ivory? Or does it allow governments to generate revenue to protect enigmatic species (and probably loads of others in the process)? (https://cites.org/eng/news/pr/2008/081107_ivory.shtml)
This is the forefront of modern conservation. It's where conservation science, economics (macro and behavioural) and human geography collide. This is one reason for the building of the new Cambridge Conservation Campus, recently opened by Sir David Attenborough. These questions are not easy to solve but they are solvable! http://www.conservation.cam.ac.uk/cambridge-conservation-campus
This is an impressive act but the question still remains as the the best course of action that governments should take with their siezed Ivory. Ivory is a commodity like anything else: sugar, coffee or chocolate. Supply and demand economics impact on its price. Will destroying a large amount of Ivory drive up price? This could have the knock on effect of increasing poaching as the rewards are greater. Alternatively, such a publicised display may drive down demand and so reduce poaching levels. The poaching networks are complex, crossing continents and with multiple levels and middlemen. Thus, it may be impossible to know the direct impact of Kenya's decision.
There are alternative paths that other Aftican governments have chosen. Under the supervision of CITES, four southern African countries (Botswana, Namibia, South Africa and Zimbabwe) carried out auctions to accredited buyers and raised $15.4 million for conservation. Most of this Ivory was legal Ivory, collected from elephants that had died naturally in national parks. I know private game reserves do the same, and a reserve close to my PhD field site flew about $4 million worth of rhino horn to a safe location. But is this type of sale right? Doesn't it just maintain a market for poached Ivory? Or does it allow governments to generate revenue to protect enigmatic species (and probably loads of others in the process)? (https://cites.org/eng/news/pr/2008/081107_ivory.shtml)
This is the forefront of modern conservation. It's where conservation science, economics (macro and behavioural) and human geography collide. This is one reason for the building of the new Cambridge Conservation Campus, recently opened by Sir David Attenborough. These questions are not easy to solve but they are solvable! http://www.conservation.cam.ac.uk/cambridge-conservation-campus
RSS Feed
