China must act, but Africa needs to take the lead to stop ivory trade | Hacker News Reader

China must act, but Africa needs to take the lead to stop ivory trade

theguardian.com

34 pointsadamnemecek9 comments

I should also mention that currently, over at /r/babyelephantgifs [1] (btw you should totally subscribe for a daily dose of elephant gifs) there is the second wildlife conservation fundraiser going on during which we encourage users to donate to wildlife conservation charities.

You should read more about it here https://www.reddit.com/r/babyelephantgifs/comments/2nxqdw/he.... If you donate and then report your donation to the mods, you will be awarded a golden elephant flair! During the first fundraiser, subscribers have reported to have donated over $8000 so we are trying to beat that.

I realize that there are many worthy causes but this one is getting somewhat serious. At the current rate of poaching, elephant will be gone in 20 years[2]. That’s assuming constant rate, but the rate is increasing.

[1] https://www.reddit.com/r/babyelephantgifs/

[2] http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/elephants-and-rhino...

I'm in no way advocating this trade should continue, but I never knew about the art carved out of ivory. I've always seen on tv/movies just the tusk. The pieces in the picture are so beautiful.

That being said, ivory it's self doesn't look much different from a concrete mix or a nicely painted piece of wood. I wonder why so many people are obsessed with it.

China has a long fascination with ivory, and Chinese have traditionally valued many exotic goods derived from animals. China also doesn't care much about the environment or natural resources, especially those that are not the natural heritage of China. The rising price of ivory will not deter people in China, on the contrary, the prestige of many items in china (eg Chateau Lafite Rothschild) is connected primarily to the price of the items.

China is a country with a population exceeding a billion people. Generalizations like this don't help anyone.

Those types of goods are known as Veblen Goods:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Veblen_good

If I had the wealth some people have in the Bay Area, I wouldn't be throwing money away at just making more money; the money would be funding legitimate wildlife preserves in Africa, and elsewhere. I know the world has many problems, but this is a problem that should be fixed--now.

I don't think this is a problem with supply, this is a problem with demand.

The solution is to (somehow) eliminate the demand for ivory with strict laws/punishments.

I'm all for using what amounts to military tactics against poachers, but that alone is probably not going to solve the problem - there is simply too much money to be made. It reminds me of the drug trade, really, and while with drugs we can mostly solve the problem through legalization, that's not really an option here.

Which is why I think this article is somewhat misguided. There is only so much Africa can do, and that's even assuming plentiful resources and political will to do it, which might be a mistaken assumption.

The demand problem needs to be solved, and only China can accomplish that. This article seems to be giving them a pass, and that's wrong. For example, I would like to know more about this "ivory spending spree" in Tanzania. Regardless of whether it was lower-level officials getting "out of control", what was the official response? Unless it was a harsh one, I'm afraid the question of whether they were following the orders of their superiors is not very relevant - the result will be the same either way, which is that ivory consumption by Chinese will be seen as socially, legally, and politically acceptable.

>>the money would be funding legitimate wildlife preserves in Africa, and elsewhere

Why not give that money to starving people?

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