China announces ban on ivory trade by end of 2017 | Hacker News Reader

China announces ban on ivory trade by end of 2017

bbc.com

481 pointsadamnemecek173 comments

For data on elephant populations and the effect of ivory bans or increased demand, check out: https://elephant-atlas.org/ - including an API. The counts come from an awesome program called the Great Elephant Census (http://www.greatelephantcensus.com/).

Disclaimer: I work for The OCR

Are there any opportunities for getting involved say in some open source projects? I'd be definitely curious.

I am largely uninformed on this topic, so maybe you can answer a dumb question:

If ivory is in such demand to the point that it has a large black market, why aren't there more attempts to domesticate and breed elephants for ivory? It seems like with selective breeding you could eventually breed small elements (that don't eat a lot and take up too much space) that have large tusks (and produce a lot of ivory).

The most obvious reason is they are difficult to breed in captivity. They have very long lifespan, long reproductive cycle, low birth rate, and high infant mortality and stillbirth (at least in captivity).

They also don't require a lot of space just because they are physically large... They require a large amount of space because they are elephants, so making them physically smaller wouldn't be helpful in reducing their space requirements.

That's all with ignoring all the impossible logistics, massive capital investment, and animal welfare concerns.

Also growing them in labs does not seem feasible. Some are trying though http://pembient.com/

They need to go further and ban any and all exotic animal trade for the quackery medicine and delicacy markets.

They do. For example, Pangolins are at the brink of extinction (they are actually the most trafficked mammal on the planet) mostly because they are considered a delicacy in China. A friend of mine is running a website called Poaching Facts (http://www.poachingfacts.com/) if you want to learn more. Here's for example his article on sales of bear parts http://www.poachingfacts.com/faces-of-the-poachers/buyers-of...

Vice also did a short documentary on it

https://video.vice.com/en_us/video/the-most-trafficked-mamma...

The situation is exacerbated by the fact that it doesn't seem like the willingness to put a stop to this is universal among the members of the Chinese govt http://www.voanews.com/a/report-china-presidential-delegatio...

As well as put in place some animal cruelty laws. You would hold your head in your hands if you saw what happens. For dogs, for example, they will tie their front legs together BEHIND their back (YES, DISLOCATING THEM), and leave them tied up like that with a tin can over their mouth until they're ready to deal with them. They'll even hold the dogs legs like a "handle" while carrying them around. I've never seen cruelty like it...

I'm not really squeamish, and I'm cognisant of the cultural difference but.. I would caution people against image searching for tied up dogs in the context of China unless you're prepared for some pretty shocking stuff.

I know, but I don't think very many people know this even exists. That's the worst part about this practice -- it's so horrible that it's too horrible to even share. As much as I hate it, I know I can't share pictures of this on Facebook because people will likely hate me more than they hate what's going on.

The way that the Chinese treat animals is despicable. We in the US aren't far off, but they take it to another level.

Yeah if China became like the (highly imperfect) US it would still be a major win.

They should pass laws, but so should the west. The poultry/egg and fishing industry is unquestionably unethical. And much of the dairy and beef industry would have to improve as well.

Again, not trying to say China shouldn't. But am pointing out that it's a bit of throwing a stone in a glass house.

I totally agree the West needs to improve animal welfare even further. But SOME cruelty laws are better than NONE, which is why I bring up China more. But you're totally right, there's awful stuff going on here, too.

Here's an interesting point: do we know that the poultry/fish industries can absorb the cost of "humanely" raiding these animals without collapsing? Assuming the money is there and this law would not kill an industry, how can we ensure that these cost increases are not passed on to the consumer?

Living in the US is expensive enough. Would you guarantee "ethical eggs" if the cost was fewer poor people could afford them? I am not happy that we treat poultry and fish the way we do, but if that means keeping those products affordable the I'd take that over increasing the welfare of an animal.

At the very least I'd start with the more intelligent animals. Pigs in gestation crates is awful.

Why do you want to "ensure that these cost increases are not passed on to the consumer"? Isn't that a major problem already (people not paying the real cost of their food)?

I can appreciate the need for cheap protein, but I don't see why it should be addressed in isolation from any other form of social inequality.

I see no reason why the government should be subsidizing someone's steak, bacon or fish. Eggs and dairy? Yes, but only for the vulnerable.

Maybe Americans would not consume (per capita) more than most nations if food was more expensive.

> do we know that the poultry/fish industries can absorb the cost of "humanely" raiding these animals without collapsing?

Enter the Tardis, go back 200 years and replace "poultry/fish" with "cotton/tobacco" and "eggs" with "fabric".

I don't think the industry needs to absorb those costs. Food is not expensive, we are just too stupid to eat it. It is ridiculously cheap since the industrialization of its production:

* We got used to only eating the very best. Lots of fruit does never reach the consumer because it does not look "nice" enough.

* We don't plan anymore. "Chicken today, we'll use the stock tomorrow for $this and the day after we can use the leftovers of $this for $that." That too comes with a high price.

* We became squeamish: A lot of meat that was regularly eaten just 50 years ago completely disappeared from our menus (tongue, liver, kidney, heart, tail, testicles, intestines). Since you are already paying for those parts, why not eat them?

* We have sacrificed the local workers' kitchen for the reliability of fast food chains: 365 days the same menu. That means 365 days of constant quality - pretty expensive when compared to the chef who goes to the market every day, picks what is good and affordable (which usually translates to "in season") and offers a good, simple and home cooked meal for $2.

* We are completely detached from our food: Who can, without googling, name 3 varieties of apples, how they taste and where they are used best? How much bread does a 10 by 10 meter field of wheat yield?

And by "we" I mean the US and Europe, in most other parts of the world people have a much, much healthier relation with their food.

Of course, increased costs will be passed onto consumers. Who else are they going to be passed on to? The magic money tree in the sky?

have you ever been in a farm? it sounds really cruel, yes, but thats quite similar to the majority of the meat production... sadly :(

Yes, i have been and have seen or heard anything like that.

I guess it is cultural? You often also hear animal cruelty stories from their zoos:

https://www.reddit.com/r/WTF/comments/169fyr/chinese_zoogoer...

There is also growing sympathy for animals in China, in my experience, but it's a few generations behind the West. My family just moved back to the US from 5 years there.

(1) A story: My two younger daughters, probably 9 and 11 at the time, were on the street in Chengdu near our apartment, and they saw a puppy, probably stray. A granny was out with her toddler grandson, and when they saw the puppy too, the granny brought her grandson over and physically swung his feet at the puppy to kick it. She was teaching him to kick a stray dog. My daughters were shocked that someone would "teach a child to kick dogs".

(2) China is still very much recovering from PTSD as a nation, from the events of the 60s and 70s. It will take another couple generations for the panic over survival to fully recede, I imagine. Animal rights are a luxury compared to survival (in people's minds).

(3) Change comes extremely fast in China -- people are very connected and can collectively shift their opinions and outlook in a heartbeat, when they're ready, thanks in part to WeChat, and in part to culture, which inculcates rapid adaptability to changing conditions.

(4) On the other hand, China is still 40-50% rural, where animals are livestock and not pets. That will likely not change as long as people eat meat! (Or at least change very slowly -- see US meat industry for example.)

> They need to go further and ban any and all exotic animal trade for the quackery medicine and delicacy markets.

Yup, like rhinoceros horns powder and shark fins amongst other things...

Difficult for politicians to implement a policy that a big part of their voter base doesn't want. Sucks but that's the reality.

It sort of depends on what "delicacy" means, right? Is bacon a delicacy? I'm sure most here will balk at the idea, but can we really feel good about abusing those incredibly intelligent animals because we prefer the taste to other equally healthy choices?

You should also check out https://reddit.com/r/babyelephantgifs. We just finished a fundraiser for David Sheldrick Wildlife Trust (an elephant orphanage in Kenya) in collaboration with the UK branch of the organization. But you can still donate!

https://www.reddit.com/r/babyelephantgifs/comments/5gm1pl/he...

DSWT even made a special video for this fundraiser https://www.youtube.com/embed/ogJprDLQFl8

Just check out for example this little orphan https://www.instagram.com/p/BOi9KfJDSKz/

The situation is really bad, if the next 10 years are as bad as the last 10, elephants will be basically extinct in the wild. This will have wide reaching consequences as elephants are keystone species which means that they are extremely important for their environment. If they go away, ecosystems will collapse which will cause further unrests in the general region.

http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20140114-elephants-the-fores...

Furthermore, money poured into the black market tends to end up in the wrong hands (read terrorist groups) http://www.nationalgeographic.com/tracking-ivory/article.htm...

If no one told you that elephants had gone extinct, would you, or the average person ever know? Being serious here no down votes plz.

I'm all for being nice to animals but tbh untill we can feed "starving kids in Africa" maybe limited resources would be better directed for humans and not elephants (ie enforcing bans / going after black market).

There's a lot more humans than elephants, and a lot of these humans should be taking better care of themselves and their environment. I'd rather my resources go to elephants who are suffering at the hands of humans than to humans who are irresponsibly destroying everything around them.

If no one told you there were people starving, neither you or the average person, would notice.

> The situation is really bad, if the next 10 years are as bad as the last 10, elephants will be basically extinct in the wild.

This is wrong. As you might know, elephants are not evenly distributed. Zimbabwe struggles with wild Elephant overpopulation and has to cull a fraction of the herd every couple of years otherwise the ecosystem will collapse.

I'm in no way supporting poaching, but raising a fact that I never see online until I raise it. Conservation is a complex topic.

This is really great news! But we can go even further, let's continue with banning Rhino horn markets (would we call it keratin markets rather than ivory?). Keratin would be primary component here, the same protein that makes human fingernails also is what composes Rhino horns.

http://www.latimes.com/world/africa/la-fg-vietnam-rhino-traf...

In Vietnam and some of China there are some who cling to a belief that eating the Rhino horn will cure/prevent cancer or increase libido. Those who believe this probably aren't aware that eating their fingernails would have the same effect.

International trade in rhino horn has been banned (via CITES) since 1977. China banned the domestic trade of rhino horn in 1993. A similar ban is in place in Vietnam. You literally cannot ban it any further.

If you want to ban the "keratin" market, make sure you promptly dispose of your woolen sweaters.

> You literally cannot ban it any further.

Eeeeh, even the definition of the word banned is very debatable. It definitely hasn't been flat out banned everywhere. And China did have pretty lax laws regarding this.

The beliefs are not based on the chemicals in the horns, but rather on a spiritual level. It's rather difficult fighting belief and tradition with international trade and anti-poaching policies.

There have been quite a few downvotes for suggesting that illegalization may not be the best remedy.

What are people's thoughts on something like: https://youtu.be/YUA8i5S0YMU

tldw:

Controlled trophy hunting big game is one of the most effective ways (sadly) of protecting the hunted animals.

And it's effective because 1) it brings in a lot of money which goes towards conservation, and 2) it economically incentivises conservation.

If you are interested in thoughtful debate on that topic, watch (listen?) to this debate that I heard on the radio a while back and was able to find [1]. My girlfriend and I were on the way back from a run and ended up sitting in the driveway for a good 30 minutes listening. I was leaning towards one side already but not so much that I wasn't open to the arguments of the other side, but I was really impressed overall with the format and the quality of the arguments on both side. I felt one side had a significantly better supported stance but it was really pleasing to hear a quality debate on the topic. Well worth the listen.

[1] http://www.intelligencesquaredus.org/debates/hunters-conserv...

Have you listened to many i2 debates? I've only ever heard one many years ago, can't remember the topic but it was absolutely fantastic, have always intended to check out some others.

This was the first and only one but I couldn't tell you why I didn't immediately go and find more. I think I will now that I have tracked this one down, it feels even more important now given the level of discourse we typically see. I would love to see more people exposed to these kinds of debates, if I was a teacher or involved in schools I would love to play things like this for students.

Gernerally I think environmentalist and hunters have the same objective, conserve a species.

When I was in Africa, it was pointed out that the "game hunters" get to bring back a trophy, and that trophy containing ivory often never makes it back, going into the black market. Keeping a steady lower bound on the supply for those making a living in smuggling, and enabling poaching elsewhere.

I have no answers to this problem. One hopes it can be stopped on the demand side, and this move by China will help. Ivory is an odd substance to be considered so valuable.

Well of course for entirely different reasons. I personally am not in favor of facilitating the human blood lust to kill in order to save a species.

Humans can easily facilitate good conservation without requiring it to be attached to the killing of animals for sport.

I think it's valuable just for the reason that it's from a unique and special animal. And the market is supported by China via corrupt government officials and organized crime.

> Controlled trophy hunting big game is one of the most effective ways (sadly) of protecting the hunted animals.

This is debatable at best. If you want to have an argument, point out research, not a college humor video.

Good move, but that gives those traders about 12 months to "kick up the volume" of ivory traded.

After that, it becomes a typical black market affair, kinda like trade in stolen art works.

China's effort to reduce shark fin soup consumption was incredibly effective. I hope this will be equally successful.

interesting. i would have thought they would choose not to enforce

... and apparently one of the most effective strategies was using Yao Ming and Jackie Chan as spokespeople against shark fin consumption!

I remember the day Mr. T convinced me not to do drugs.

Drugs are biologically and psychologically addictive. Stuff like ivory have social appeal. The only reason they are valuable (like diamonds) is because others think they are valuable. So having celebrities decry them hits them directly at their source of appeal unlike drugs. This doesn't affect the bs medicinal market directly but if it reduces the value but keeps the cost high anyways (thanks to additional penalties) it may make the medicines less appealing to those who are price conscious. Of course this is discrimination against the poor and could be a genuine issue if they had real medicinal value but since they actually don't it's much more defensible.

I think drugs have a social component too. No one is addicted to drugs before trying them for the first time.

Public awareness campaigns were key in stopping the ivory trade within the United States (before it was ramped up again by the Chinese). Demand is the real problem, and creating the image that ivory (or shark fin soup) isn't cool is extremely effective.

Do you have any example of such a campaign? I'm only aware of things like "drugs aren't cool", which isn't going to sway anyone. I wonder what an effective example of a public awareness campaign looks like.

I think that the second wave of KKK was stopped by something like this. The shark fin campaign in China was also a success.

The US undertook a widespread anti-littering campaign in the 1950s. We of course still have rubbish making it's way onto our road and walk ways but it's nothing compared to much of the rest of the world.

And it's nothing compared to what it used to be like in the US. Many people used to think nothing of just tossing food trash out the window.

The whole anti-littering campaign story is interesting. Apparently the original campaign that everyone (at least everyone over a certain age) remembers with the crying "Indian" (who was actually an Italian-American actor) wasn't really all that effective.

One of the later campaigns that were considered more effective included "Don't Mess with Texas" which featured actors like Chuck Norris.

Calling public awareness campaigns "extremely effective" is a vast simplification of the matter. Public awareness campaigns are good at pushing a substance towards being banned. Once a substance is prohibited, it is subject to the "forbidden fruit" effect, which I've mentioned below [1]. Additionally, if public awareness campaigns continue under a ban, they're likely to induce a "boomerang" effect. For instance, the National Youth Anti-Drug Media Campaign may have promoted drug use and pro-cannabis attitudes in the young [2]. Crazy, right? Well, California did just legalize marijuana!

My guess is that parent is obliquely referring to that phenomenon.

In my chosen domain of rhinos, it is starting to look as though the public awareness campaigns run from 2008 to 2014 very well could've accidently spread the message that rhino horn is rare, risky, and desirable.

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13287393

[2] http://findings.org.uk/docs/Ashton_M_1.pdf

So, speaking about your chosen field, Save the Rhino International and the International Rhino Foundation think rhino horns won't solve the problem:

https://www.savetherhino.org/rhino_info/thorny_issues/synthe...

What is your response to this? I really want to save rhinos too, and I'm not sure how to help. I've donated to both of those organisations, and I kind of want to figure out how convince Vietnam that rhino horns absolutely do not cure cancer. Why do you think synthetic horns will work instead?

Not to besmirch SRT and IRF. They're good organizations that know a lot about rhinos and ecology. However, I have my doubts about their grasp of markets, psychology, history, and statistics among other things.

For instance, from 2008 to 2014 they pushed the message that rhino horn was being used for medicinal purposes. As early as 2012, some intrepid investigators started to make the case that that wasn't what was driving the poaching crisis. There is now a growing consensus that Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) was a red herring all along [1, 2].

I believe they're wrong about biofabricated horn too. If you're interested, you can read my rebuttal to their objections here:

https://sosv.com/why-pembient-is-confident-in-synthetic-rhin...

TL;DR: We have Nobel Prize-winning theory (Akerlof, 2001) underlying our proposed intervention.

[1] https://twitter.com/savetherhino/status/798885174520016896

[2] https://wildlifejustice.org/cn/overlooked-rhino-horn-demand-...

https://www.cdc.gov/tobacco/data_statistics/tables/trends/ci...

Yes, and? Smoking has never been outlawed; although, many have tried. I applaud demand reduction in lieu of prohibition. Once prohibition is in place, look out!

To be fair, you also had countless celebrities broadcasting the message that drugs are cool and awesome.

Propaganda doesn't work on the good stuff.

Yao Ming is actually doing a lot for this cause as well. I posted about this a while back as well

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8271382

Kudos to Chinese government to work together with international society and celebrities to raise the awareness of normal Chinese people. Shark fin was considered a delicacy, but in fact not tasty at all. Most people just need to get the truth be told to them in a way that they are willing to listen, Cheng Long and Yao Ming are perfect public faces for such effort.

> Shark fin was considered a delicacy, but in fact not tasty at all.

What a meaningless statement - that is as subjective as can be.

Not really. Think tofu. 99/100 people will agree it is boring.

I assume you are not Chinese.

Shark fin is populated almost everywhere as some kind of unbelievable delicacy, only the most previleged individuals can afford them.

Such illusion is portraited in books, films, casual chats, etc. This type of mysterious image of a thing, which actually is neither delicious nor highly nutritious, makes any banning of such thing impossible. Bescause everyone is convinced that it is that good, including those who are in charge of making the decision.

It was only after many years of gradual shift in public perception that makes the eventual tide turn happens. Now most people would agree that shark fin is expensive, because they are from sharks, not because they are incredibly delicious.

When I said "not tasty at all", that definitely is subjective. But at the same time it is reprentative. Because shark fin tastes just like "fen si", with fishy scent. "Fen si" is something that every Chinese eat daily. That is quite different from what one would expect from the images of popular sources. If something just tastes like another thing that one eats daily, does that make it a delicacy at all?!

I think lobster is not tasty at all. It used to be fed to prisoners 200 years ago. How do we get people to stop fawning over it and admit it's an ocean cochroach?

Except that in China government can throw people off the cliff on a whim and it wouldn't matter. The only way to operate a black market in China would be to have a politician as a partner.

I always wondered- why is the ivory market not flooded with fakes? Everything is faked in china, this is a valuable good- is there no way to synthesize dentin flood the poachers out of the buisness?

There probably is but the market for ivory is for ornamental/medicinal practices, which require "real" ivory.

This has been considered before, but there's a significant risk that it would only drive up the value of "genuine" ivory. It could also make it harder to discredit the beliefs about ivory having special medicinal/magical properties, since people could rationalize "well it only works with REAL ivory."

For ivory, you would essentially have to grow a tooth in vitro for less than $1500, retail. Technologically, we're not there yet.

Can you prove that ivory is ivory? Why not ceramic or plastic or something that feels like ivory but isn't?

A simple method would be to burn it. If it smells like when you burn fingernail, it probably is ivory.

Have you ever burned a fingernail?

Burn tests, as yyhhsj0521 points out, are done. If the object is made of keratin, it will smell like burning hair. I've never burned ivory, but I imagine it would also give off a unique smell (e.g., think drilling in a dentist office). Of course, as biotech advances, DNA tests and the like will be cheap and prevelant, and those will be used to establish authenticity.

There have been some substitutes developed for ivory, but they're readily identifiable. These substitutes include the tagua nut [1] and nitrocellulose plastic [2].

[1] http://animals.oreilly.com/the-other-ivory/

[2] http://io9.gizmodo.com/the-earliest-plastic-billiard-balls-h...

One source of fake ivory is mammoth tusk, which isn't under the same bans.

http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2013/04/125-mammoth-tusks/...

There is a startup trying to do just that... bioengineer rhino horns, tusks etc.

http://signup.pembient.com/

Thanks for the mention! We're mainly focused on horn at present, but I do mention ivory here:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13288580

Woot! Thank you China! Elephants are my favorite animal and it's sad to see such magestic creatures slaughtered for such nominal things. Or any animal for that matter. Shark fin soup? Seriously what a waste of a needed predator.

I once saw shark fin soup on a high-end restaurant's menu in Dubai, sometime in 2013. I asked a waitress and she said they weren't serving it any more. The menu hadn't been updated, so the change must have been recent. I was pretty disgusted by the whole thing to be frank.

I wonder if they just tell that to foreigners who ask questions.

I wasn't a foreigner: I lived in the UAE for 14 years. Besides, she was pretty taken aback when I asked, and I made sure to convey my surprise at the dish.

Your surprise informed her answer.

So is there any reason in particular that the thought of eating something containing shark fin "disgusted" you, but all of the other animal parts on the menu were just fine?

The level of hypocrisy in this thread is incredible. Save the elephants, save the sharks, save the whales; I guess because we think those animals are coolest/cutest they get a pass. Guess what other animals are smart? Pigs. They can do math and make good pets and we mow them down by the millions. How about cows? They are sacred in some countries, I bet someone from India would be "disgusted" that they sell dead cow in American restaurants!

Whales are endangered. Sharks are killed solely for their fins. Same goes for elephants and their tusks.

Cows and pigs are killed humanely, and used efficiently, with a clear goal in mind: feeding humans.

I'm disgusted by shark fin soup because of wastefulness. Why kill a living being if you're just going to use an insignificant part of it?

We can argue about this all day, but in the end, it's all relative. Until we can come up with a synthetic and affordable alternative to meat, this is going to continue, whether you like it or not.

Whales are not endangered. Some types of whales are endangered. In fact, most Humpback species were removed from the endangered list.

http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2016/09/07/492976575/...

Good for you that you're disgusted by someone else's culture, I'm sure they feel the same way about you. I am just sick of the hypocrisy that so many people show. Ever kill a mouse in a mouse trap? That's a life gone for no reason, you should be ashamed.

Seems like everyone has an opinion on just which animals are okay to kill and which aren't. That's cool if you want to think that, but you are basically saying "I think its okay to kill these animals but not these." and everyone has a different line.

My bad regarding whales then. But still, I believe whalers don't "use" the whole whale, right? It used to be blubber, not sure what it is now.

Dude, living in this beautiful and multi-cultural world is a great blessing, but you have to offend someone's culture eventually. There is simply no way to satisfy everyone, which is why this whole PC movement is silly imo.

Yes, that's basically it: you may think no animals should be killed, while I think that some should be killed. But the "winner" is the one who convinces the most people by providing the most compelling arguments.

As it stands, the majority agrees that cows and pigs must die to feed humans. They also agree that sharks should not be killed for their fins, elephants should not be killed for their tusks, etc.

Now, we may end up being wrong about cows and pigs (unlikely, given history and research), but this will appear over time rather than overnight.

Whale hunters in Japan (where they have gotten a lot of criticism in recent years) most certainly do use the whole whale, or at least most of it. They eat the meat; so it's no more wasteful than eating a cow, pig, chicken. It may have been the case that they used to just harvest the blubber, but don't think it's cost effective to even do that any more (crude oil is way, way cheaper).

I'm not sure where I ever said no animals should be killed, quite the opposite in fact. I don't have an issue with ANY animal being killed. However I realize that some people DO have an issue with only certain animals being killed and not others; that is the hypocrisy.

It seems the basis of your entire argument is that you just want to do what the majority says is okay to do. That's a cool way to live your life I guess, but at least try to think for yourself every now and again.

That city doesn't have the best track record when it comes to human and animal welfare concerns. It was built essentially by slave labor after all.

I would estimate that per capita, Dubai is a larger consumer of illegal wildlife products than China.

The Sheraton Grand Taipei served shark fin soup until early this year despite a ban from Sheraton corporate dating back to 2014.

Now we just need to get Japan to stop whaling in the name of "science".

Sorry but I find most comments here @#!@ing inane.

We kill millions of pigs every year (intelligent animals) and farm millions of cows (Extinct many many animals through environmental destruction through use of large amounts of land) but we expect China to care about the second hand effects of the ivory trade.

Where they still have millions living in poverty, we are rich (speaking as a westerner who eats meat, not all of HN)

We love to be racist don't we?

I guess if we convince the Chinese the Rape of Nanking was cows and not elephants they can become like us.

Am I the only one shocked to learn that ivory was still legal in China? I know China has a reputation for being a bit dystopian, but I thought this was one of those things that everyone agreed on.

I think the bar for real-life dystopias are considerably higher these days.

For people wondering why it will take til the end of 2017, compare: the egg "industry" tosses all male chicks into blenders (yes, while alive), and have promised to stop doing it by 2020: http://www.vox.com/2016/6/9/11896096/eggs-chick-culling-ende...

That's 3+ years, and hundreds of millions of baby birds shredded alive.

Coincidentally I watched a new documentary last night on Netflix named "The Ivory Game" (https://www.netflix.com/browse?jbv=80117533&jbp=0&jbr=6)

Heartbreaking documentary on the massive killing of elephants for ivory and how futile all of the efforts the African nations are taking to try to stop poaching and killing by local farmers.

Investigative segments include a Chinese journalist undercover with WildLeak talking to the Chinese criminals involved in the massive illegal ivory trade.

I hope this was instrumental in getting the Chinese govt to actually set a ban date for ivory. Currently their regulation are so lax and so corrupt that it's easy for the "legal" ivory dealer to launder illegal ivory in order to sell millions of dollars worth every day.

Did you know over 1000 Kenyan and other African game rangers have been kill in the protection of elephants by poachers. Terrible.

"by the end of 2017"?

This must be a joke. Why not earlier? Why do they have to wait a whole year to enforce a ban like this?

It's almost like "China announces ban on human trafficking by end of 2017". Yeah, let's give criminals some time to find new career opportunities!

Considering they need to inform everyone of this, think of strategies to effectively combat ivory trading, etcetera, 1 year is a very small time period.

Wouldn't it be better if they finalized their plans before announcing something like this? this could very well make the poachers ramp up whatever they were doing, me thinks.

So they should be less transparent?

I know, it's strange, isn't it? I've read that some fifty elephants are killed every day. Fifty a day!

Undoubtedly, the announcement will only spur poachers to work overtime and make money while the making is good.

Then there's the question of enforcement.

Thousands more will die before this senseless slaughter finally stops, if it ever does.

Again? They have already banned the ivory trade a few times, do they actually mean it this time?

Not all of the bans are the same. You might be referring to the ban that was announced late 2015 (IIRC) which was a temporary ban for a year to see if it works.

Meh, they do this a lot. Every year they talk about how coal will be banned in Beijing next year, or that they'll stop harvesting organs from condemned prisoners, and so on. Just for them to repeat the same pledge next year. The Chinese gov promises arent credible, and something isn't a sure thing until they really do it.

> The Chinese gov promises arent credible, and something isn't a sure thing until they really do it.

It's a first step. I think that this is slightly different from either of those because

a.) the money in this industry and the number of people depending on it is only a fraction of those of coal mining

b.) people will never need ivory the same way they need organs

Even though they do have a long way to go, promising that they will do something about it is the first step.

They (the families in charge) own most of the ivory themselves and this is just like promising to be good. Remember when Xi's entourage stocked up on ivory on an official trip to Africa?

http://qz.com/292268/chinese-officials-allegedly-smuggled-iv...

Like they need convenient access to organs for Guanxi oriented transplants, they want nice ivory to decorate their villas. The fact that they aren't subject to Chinese law (until they are expelled from the party) anyways makes this very easy.

OK... how about rhino horn? Compared to rhinos, elephants are in zero danger. Not defending poachers, but this is the wrong thing to prioritize. (Also cheetahs, and probably a lot of other species)

Ivory and tusks, rhino horn, pangolin scales, tiger penis, tiger pelts, tiger paws, turtle shells, shark fins, the list goes on and on and on... a trip to a generic street market in China and you can find endangered animal species parts being sold openly for shockingly cheap.

How about banning any and all animal products involved in the quackery "medicine" trade or ludicrous edible "delicacy" which are the driving force behind the problem to begin with?

If they are "shockingly cheap" and can be found in a street market, then they are probably not real.

> Compared to rhinos, elephants are in zero danger.

Elephants are definitely NOT in zero danger. Certain species of Rhino are definitely virtually extinct (for example, there are only three known remaining specimen of the Northern white rhino https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northern_white_rhinoceros) but elephants are in a pretty bad shape too. If the next 10 years are as bad as the last 10, they will be virtually extinct in the wild.

Furthermore, IIRC, the biggest consumer of illegal rhino horn isn't China but Vietnam.

How do you define elephants "in the wild"? Some African countries cull their elephant herds due to overpopulation. These tend to be on reserves, but we're talking massive chunks of land that would be considered "wild".

You can interpret "in the wild" is as places where the rangers might not be aware of all the specimen living in the reserve.

Even though some of these are technically reserves, some of them are pretty large

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tsavo_East_National_Park is 13,747 km2/5,308 sq mi.

The park rangers have only a rough idea of how many elephants live in the reserve.

I feel somewhat qualified to speak on this since my startup, Pembient, biofabricates rhino horn. Basically, rhino horn has been banned in China since 1993. Despite that prohibition, much rhino horn still ends up in China, where it is used primarily for decorative purposes and not medicinal purposes as is widely reported [1].

From a policy perspective, bans often don't work because they induce a "forbidden fruit" effect [2]. Or, in the words of Walter Lippmann [3]:

"We find ourselves revolving in a circle of impotence in which we outlaw intolerantly the satisfaction of certain persistent human desires and then tolerate what we have prohibited. Thus we find ourselves accepting in their lawless forms the very things which in lawful form we repudiate, having in the end to deal not only with all the vices we intended to abolish but with the additional dangers which arise from having turned over their exploitation to the underworld."

It is especially strange seeing wildlife policy push further towards a "war on drugs" stance at the same time that many are claiming that war has been lost [4].

It will be interesting to see how things play out, but I believe policy in this area is fundamentally flawed and will remain so for the foreseeable future. Hopefully, the animals will survive our blundering.

[1] https://wildlifejustice.org/cn/overlooked-rhino-horn-demand-...

[2] http://www.independent.org/publications/tir/article.asp?a=33...

[3] http://www.unz.org/Pub/Forum-1931feb-00065

[4] https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2016/11/war-on-drugs-legaliza...

I was wandering as well if the ban won't drive the price up even more, just like the Prohibition did with alcohol.

Not everything has the same economics as illegal substances. Kinder Surprise eggs are illegal in the US but you don't see much of a black market for them. That's because they are perfectly replaceable by other goods, just like most luxury goods.

This was long time coming, and hopefully they'll do a lot against the black market as well.

Way to go China. Thank you.

We banned the hunt for dodos, T-rex and mammoths in Germany last year. Wasn't easy, but government heroics, they are possible.

Esoterics kills.

Why not end of 2016?

how about rhinoceros horn trade?

> I think people on HN perceive hunting or ivory trading as something bad such as human trafficking. It isn't.

They both involve exploitation and suffering of intelligent and sentient being for selfish reasons.

> My great-grandfather was an Ivory trader

Your grandfather was a scum and no amount of mental gymnastics will change that.

> With increasing government regulation and heavy handed attitude of regulators the entire industry got pushed underground.

Illegal markets tend to be a lot smaller than legal markets (in terms of amount of goods purchased at least).

> As far as Ivory trade in Kenya is considered the people who take money from the western world to conserve are often the leaders of the cartels who smuggle ivory.

Welcome to corrupt governments? Does the fact that laws cannot be enforced 100% mean that we don't need them?

> The result of the ban would be further exploitation of the poachers and hunters

You should start a charity to support these poor souls /s.

> and yes they are going to poach elephants at faster rate.

Can you explain to me why the poaching crisis wasn't this bad until 2008 when CITES lifted restriction on ivory sales?

This whole discussion reminds me of this Onion video

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RKccr8g1xCU

> Your grandfather was a scum

Please don't do this here.

wew lad

I respect how passionately you feel about this topic (and share some of the same feeling), but obviously "Your grandfather was a scum" (a) is completely off limits here, and (b) helps nothing and persuades nobody. Since you care deeply about your cause, you shouldn't undermine it by venting like that. In any case, please don't do so on HN.

We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13287741 and marked it off-topic.

Only if bans worked!

Saying that they don't is a little over reaching. And by a little I mean a lot.

They do, sometimes. It depends on barriers to entry. It's hard to ban marijuana or alcohol, because it's so easy to make. Relatively true for meth as well. But you don't see many people doing quaaludes anymore because it's not easy to make. Additionally, a ban like this doesn't have to be 100% effective to be worth the trouble. The time frame is also important. Saying "bans don't work" is absurdly reductionist.

So what bans have worked so far ? all the verbal sophistry useless unless you give a proper example.

What will happen to the people who hunt/trade ivory. Specifically, those who live in villages and depend on it as a source of income. Will there be assistance to wean them off elephant hunting.

I hope they get new skills and do not poach other animals.

This is like saying, in response to a crackdown on mugging, "I hope the muggers get the assistance they need to get new skills and not move on to other crimes."

I'd prefer if the poachers actually all got arrested, and got new skills breaking big rocks into smaller rocks.

Your line of thinking is why the "War on Drugs" is a failure. If you think people want to hunt elephants, deal drugs, or mug for a living, you haven't thought hard enough on the socioeconomic problem that plagues the poor.

The war on drugs comparison is really commonly compared with war on illegal wildlife, however the two differ pretty drastically once you stop thinking of them as just "bans on things". For example, the prevention strategies for these two are vastly different. Furthermore,

a.) There are legal drugs and substances that can be used to manufacture illegal drugs. You cannot fully outlaw these, unlike wildlife animal products.

b.) IIRC the vast majority of illegal wildlife products come to the US (and US is large consumer of illegal wildlife products) via ships (as opposed to by plane or truck) and is only a handful of ports that need to be secured. There is like an infinite number of potential access points for drugs. And even if you succeed 100% in preventing smuggling attempts, you will still have domestic manufacturers.

c.) The reason why the two are banned are really different to. With wildlife poaching, the damage is done during the "manufacturing" of the products, whereas with drugs it's mostly the consumption and trade that cause the damage.

Reading material for you from the president of Columbia, citing the failures of the War on Drugs.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/apr/18/colombia-unite...

"“We need to provide social and economic alternatives to small growers of illegal crops and other vulnerable communities in order to create the necessary conditions to bring them back to legality,” wrote Santos in an opinion piece in the Observer."

And your analogy of the mugging is invalid. In mugging there's two parties, the mugger and the victim. The war on drugs is the closest analogy. It is an illegal trade, just like ivory. There's three parties. The grower, seller, and buyer.

If you do not get the grower, in this case, the ivory hunter, a legal path to providing food for their family, it will be a failure, just like the crackdown on cocaine for the last 30 years.

> We need to provide social and economic alternatives to small growers of illegal crops and other vulnerable communities in order to create the necessary conditions to bring them back to legality,

We don't want legality. The reason why the situation is really bad currently is because back in 2008, CITES lifted restrictions on ivory sales which allowed several African nations to sell their ivory stockpiles to China and Japan. The current situation is believed to be a direct result of this and the demand has skyrocket since then.

In 80's, there was a similar poaching crisis, what eventually put an end to it was making as much of the trade as possible illegal.

War on drugs and poaching are similar only on the superficial level. Read my comment below where I talk about it.

The "them" in this sentence is the farmers not the drugs: the quote is arguing for giving the farmers a path to a legal livelihood. Similarly the parent is arguing for legal alternatives to poaching as desperate, starving people will always care about feeding their families more than an arbitrary law.

Oh, thanks, I did have a hard time understanding that sentence.

It's true that the people need something else to feed their families, however western and Asian countries will have an easier time banning these products than providing these alternatives.

If the demand goes away, so will the supply.

Totally agree. War on Drugs is a failure and Ivory trade ban would be another failure.

Government wants to ban something which people want and some people willing to supply. Unless someone has strong private property right over elephants I don't see how these people are going to change. Ban might increase cost and risks and might lead to serious exploitation of the foot soldiers in this business but it is not going to be good for animals.

China could have imported 1000 elephants and could farmed them for their ivory.

> Totally agree. War on Drugs is a failure and Ivory trade ban would be another failure.

They are more dissimilar than similar. Not all illegal goods have the same economics as illegal substances. Kinder Surprise eggs are illegal in the US, yet there isn't much of a market for them.

> Government wants to ban something which people want and some people willing to supply.

The situation is really different. When people go buy ivory, they are buying it to show off their wealth. Similarly, few rich people would buy a Faberge egg from a shady guy on the street, esp. if being seen with it in public (you know, the reason why you might be buying it in the first place) might raise question about the product's origin.

People want luxury goods, not necessarily ivory in particular. If you ban Ferraris, people will buy Lamborghinis. If you ban sports cars, they might buy yachts.

> China could have imported 1000 elephants and could farmed them for their ivory.

Do you know much about elephant husbandry? Disregarding ethical issues, it's not possible for financial and ecological reasons.

> Not all illegal goods have the same economics as illegal substances

Dont see your point. Kinder would not have much demand even if it is illegal as it competes with many other similar products easily available. Ivory appears to me something very similar to marijuana or cocaine than Kinder eggs to me.

> When people go buy ivory, they are buying it to show off their wealth.

You don't have much idea about illegal trade. What makes you think the black market only has shady guys on street peddling smuggled items. Rich people extensively deal in illegal items and get them home delivered in armored car if needed.

> People want luxury goods, not necessarily ivory in particular.

I don't see much of logic. On the contrary Ivory might get far more desirable and much bigger status symbol once it is made illegal. You should remember that every illegal thing in a society eventually has exceptions for powerful. A hand-gun is a big status symbol in India and UK where gun control is hysterical. Same is likely to happen with Ivory.

> If you do not get the grower, in this case, the ivory hunter, a legal path to providing food for their family, it will be a failure, just like the crackdown on cocaine for the last 30 years.

This is entirely speculative. How do you know that the poachers don't have perfectly reasonable means of providing for their families, and are simply poaching because they make more money that way?

If a mugger is caught, I'm very much in favor of giving him a hefty prison sentence. However, if you want a sustained decline in the violent crime rate in a whole society, law enforcement is only part of the picture. You absolutely do have to do something about the root causes, the socio-economic factors that were giving a generation of young men the feeling that they had nothing better to do than mug people. It's not about sympathy for criminals. It's about doing things that actually work, not just things that feel righteous.

Not sure why you are being downvoted. I think people on HN perceive hunting or ivory trading as something bad such as human trafficking. It isn't. My great-grandfather was an Ivory trader and traded ivory and employed artists who would make amazing carvings out of Ivory he purchased from Kerala and Africa. With increasing government regulation and heavy handed attitude of regulators the entire industry got pushed underground. My grandfather shut the business and the artists went into underground economy being exploited and working in more horrible conditions.

As far as Ivory trade in Kenya is considered the people who take money from the western world to conserve are often the leaders of the cartels who smuggle ivory. The result of the ban would be further exploitation of the poachers and hunters and yes they are going to poach elephants at faster rate.

Well sorry to say this but even under your grandfathers time ivory trading was awful. I say this as a Kenyan.

The leadership of the Government of Kenya at the time were involved in this and it led to not only to a culture of large scale corruption but also to uncontrolled killing of elephants.

The good side that was looked at at the time: Elephants no longer invade human settlement and profit can be made from it. The downside no one cared about was the long term survival of elephants.

Unfortunately the corruption element is where everything broke down, it wasn't that the industry was pushed underground - it was that the elephant is not an animal that can be farmed or domesticated & further - the demand outweighing supply only meant that regulation couldn't be enforced anyway. Your grandfather played a role in this which is nothing to be proud of.

Today it is the same thing you cannot regulate elephants and farm them because they cannot be domesticated and have lifespans as long as us.

I can say this having elephant ivory in my house from my elderly family members too - also not a good thing. They did not trade it but they bought it being unaware of the consequences where unrestrained human and economic growth eats into the limited factet of nature's abundance.

Good thing though: Elephants now adapt evolutionarily and grow old without tusks.

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