How World's Largest Legal Ivory Market Fuels Demand for Illegal Ivory
news.nationalgeographic.com
news.nationalgeographic.com
Paul Allen has donated millions of dollars [0] to make sure this initiative gets through, which I think is great in a vacuum because I agree with what it accomplishes. However, in general I am against the concept of one individual person driving the success of an initiative because they feel passionate about a specific issue.
Is it more acceptable when the issue is seemingly benevolent?
[0] http://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/politics/paul-allen...
Elephants are endangered because they are not owned; cattle, for example, are not endangered because the demand for them is profitable. The right thing to do, if one wishes to preserve endangered species, is to make it possible for people to legally raise, own and harvest elephants, rhinoceroses, tigers and the like.
I suddenly found myself finding big-game hunting a whole lot less morally repugnant when I realized that the big money that goes into it is very much used to keep many species alive. Operators of paid hunting areas have a very strongly vested interest in keeping their revenue stream going, and thus, in keeping viable populations around.
I am not pro-hunting by any means, but given a world where wildlife is hopelessly outmatched by man for resource competition, the only way to keep endangered species populated is to harness some aspect of humanity to fight for their preservation in ways that matter. Paid big-game hunting and animal cultivation is an effective way to do that and should be done more.
The conflict between man and wildlife is one-sided enough that blanket "protection" is not sufficient to save many animal populations. They need active cultivation and encouragement if they're not to be wiped out through attrition (via illegal poaching, loss of habitat, etc). Simply making it more illegal isn't going to prevent that.
This is the reason why the United States Wildlife Service has imposed a moratorium on imports of all hunting trophies from Tanzania and Zimbabwe. You can read more about it here http://www.fws.gov/international/pdf/questions-and-answers-s...
There is nothing to indicate that the situation is dramatically different in other countries.
Also your argument doesn't explain why the populations of many of the species protected by Initiative 1401 have been declining. If what you are saying actually works in practice, the populations should have been increasing.
how does it alienate the property?
> further reduces the incentives for those who live near such animals to farm them, rather than to poach them.
why would they poach them if there is no market for ivory?
> The right thing to do, if one wishes to preserve endangered species, is to make it possible for people to legally raise, own and harvest elephants, rhinoceroses, tigers and the like.
Can you actually make a proposal how one would transition from the current state of affairs to the one you are proposing? Can you talk about some possible issues with your proposal? For example how would you prevent extinction of elephants in the wild?
They won't be able to sell their property; if one can't sell something, it has lost all value. As such, it violates the Fifth Amendment.
The initiative also enables law enforcement to seize such items without warrants, which violates the Fourth Amendment.
> why would they poach them if there is no market for ivory?
Because there is, and always will be, a black market for them. And because megafauna such as elephants are pests. Poor farmers would just as soon kill them than see their families starve because their crops have been eaten or trampled.
> For example how would you prevent extinction of elephants in the wild?
I imagine that elephant ranches would be pretty close to a wild environment. Even were they not, would you rather have elephants go extinct altogether, or survive on ranches?
It doesn't and you know it so stop bullshitting. The government isn't seizing property, it just makes some antiques worthless. Which, again, is not the same as seizing. And the government has every right to ban or restrict the sales of something. We, as a society, have already accepted this trade off.
> Because there is, and always will be, a black market for them.
The size of this black market would be a lot smaller. Ivory isn't drugs, people don't "have" to buy ivory, unlike say heroin. What's the size of the black market for Kinder Surprise eggs, another thing that's illegal to sell? It's probably pretty small, because people don't need to buy Kinder Surprise eggs.
> And because megafauna such as elephants are pests. Poor farmers would just as soon kill them than see their families starve because their crops have been eaten or trampled.
Sure, some farmers kill them and will continue killing them. The question is the magnitude. These farmers aren't killing nowhere near as many elephants are poachers are.
> I imagine that elephant ranches would be pretty close to a wild environment. Even were they not, would you rather have elephants go extinct altogether, or survive on ranches?
This would lead to extinction of elephants in the wild.
> you rather have elephants go extinct altogether, or survive on ranches?
Nice false dichotomy. I would rather have them survive in the wild. Which is achievable if there's a global ban on ivory sales.
This is not true even for African Elephant ivory, at least not yet. [1] There is also legal ivory trade in Mammoth and other animals such as wart hog that can easily be found at gem shows, knife and gun shows, etc.
I talked to a guy from the Ukraine at a knife show who was selling Mammoth tusks recovered from Russia and apparently had quite a time at the airport but he was able to bring in his supplies for sale.
[1] http://www.fws.gov/international/travel-and-trade/ivory-ban-...
(Though this was probably 15 years ago...it looks like the law might have changed and he could get his keyboard now!)
Markets are not static entities that exist on top of some underlying substrate of supply and demand. Supply and demand change according to market structures.
My favorite example is "collectable computers" since I lived this during the late 90's and early naughts. A lot of people wished they had that old computer they learned on, or wanted desperately as a kid, but circumstances had kept them from it, and they had largely resigned themselves to never owning one. And then Ebay happened. And it created a market that allowed sellers from everywhere to put what ever crap they wanted to "online" to a wide variety of possible buyers. And suddenly, people had a way to actually service their desire for an old computer.
Altairs, IMSAI's, PDP 8's and PDP 11's. Stuff that was "worthless crap" could find someone who would cherish it and pay for it. I found myself buying pallets of stuff from SRI's "junk" sale for $50, only to sell the 10 HP calculators in a box on that pallet for $2,500 on EBay, old PDP parts to collectors for $300 - $500, and just playing with a really nice set up custom built instruments.
So did Ebay "fuel" the demand? It certainly felt like it from a non-economist point of view. It was the only thing different now than before. But no, the demand was out there and Ebay simply made the market for it.
The Ivory market is the same way, its constrained to legal sources but the demand exceeds those sources. If there was no market for ivory the demand would remain boxed up, with people who wished they could having something of ivory but won't cross the line of legality to get it. That demand would go dormant. And many times it has been proposed to do just that, ban all ivory sale and transport. And that would hurt the poachers, but it also would hurt the folks who have "legal" ivory and could benefit from converting it into cash. The solution to both problems simultaneously still eludes us.
If there was no way to acquire legal Ivory and all forms of Ivory would be illegal and culturally unacceptable people would want it less, if it will be viewed as morally abhorrent to have an Ivory statue as a center piece in your living room less people will want it.
If artists could not get their hands on Ivory they will result in using alternative materials, most people don't want a block of Ivory they want a masterfully crafted art piece again driving the overall demand for Ivory down.