It sucks that they'd destroying the land and the rivers but that's not new. Hopefully they find some equilibrium that legalizes what they're up to that maximizes the upside and minimizes the damage like more mature resource extraction industries do.
I have zero confidence that mature natural resource extraction companies are operating within sustainable bounds today, and a lot of evidence to back that up...
a large enough collection of resource extraction industries have already denuded vast areas and continue to do so .. combine with poisonous petrochemical products over time and industrial lighting and roads.. we are in a fast-paced extinction event.. "we" means a lot of economies..
It is "successful" in the short term to be greedy. Many companies today are successful.
Your average 22yo isn't doing something like this with his buddies. Between the equipment, expertise, consumables, etc, etc, it's clearly the kind of thing that's organized and financially backed by someone (i.e. like most small business). So while most may lose money, we don't know if it's a "send out three teams and one winner pays for two losers" type situation.
The way I see it these mammoth bits are far more likely to be preserved if used as home decor or whatever somewhere in China than if they wind up rotting away when (let's be real here, probably not an "if") the permafrost melts or in some mine's tailings pile when some other industry comes through. If this was all above the table there'd be more ancillary industry around it too. Sure the tusk might be cost prohibitive but why can't every highschool biology department have a "worthless" femur or jaw or backbone segment? Oh, because it's illegal so "less profitable stuff" (i.e. same reason the cartel doesn't move low density product) like that gets discarded, that's why.