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A recent survey of savanna elephant populations estimated that poachers killed 30,000 animals annually between 2007 and 2014, reducing the population to fewer than 400,000. Overall, researchers estimate that African elephant numbers have plummeted more than 95% over the past century.
[...] Zimbabwe, Namibia, and South Africa—are expected to offer proposals for restarting a legal ivory trade. All argue that some elephant populations are healthy enough to be managed for ivory production. The proposals envision taking tusks from both animals that are intentionally killed—sometimes because they become nuisances, trampling crops and threatening people—and those that die naturally.
A study in Current Biology concludes that the demand for ivory far exceeds any sustainable harvest model and that there is a high risk that lifting the ivory ban will make things worse. The authors note that attempts must be made to reduce the demand for ivory:
At the same time, we cannot brush aside the fact that poaching has reached industrial scale fuelled by an increase in consumer demand driven by the rise of the middle class in countries like China. We must urgently work on finding ways to change consumer behavior as the only avenue by which we can resolve the ivory trade tragedy.
http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2016/09/legalizing-ivory-trade-wont-save-elephants-study-concludes
http://www.cell.com/current-biology/fulltext/S0960-9822(16)31005-3
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Destruction_of_ivory
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday October 24 2016, @12:55PM
The law of supply and demand should solve this, no? Harvest at a sustainable rate and charge as much as the market will bear and supply should equal demand. Sounds like they're not charging enough. Take the harvest and auction it off three or four times a year and this should balance out very quickly.
Mind you, you'll need to start shooting poachers who would of course be selling outside the auctions.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Rosco P. Coltrane on Monday October 24 2016, @01:20PM
The law of supply and demand should solve this, no? Harvest at a sustainable rate and charge as much as the market will bear and supply should equal demand.
The problem is that supply already meets demand, only it's through an illegal channel. Your legal trade will always be supplemented by the illegal one, it'll just drive the price down a bit for both, and certainly not enough to kill off poaching.
(Score: 2, Disagree) by jdavidb on Monday October 24 2016, @02:30PM
it'll just drive the price down a bit for both, and certainly not enough to kill off poaching
That would still be an improvement, and much more realistic than their proposal: "attempts must be made to reduce the demand for ivory." We can all see how effective it is to try to solve a problem by wishing for the demand to go down; just look at the drug war. You may as well wish for gravity to change.
ⓋⒶ☮✝🕊 Secession is the right of all sentient beings
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 24 2016, @02:49PM
And if you read TFA, you might remember that the authors conclude that sustainable harvesting is not a realistic solution. The study was done in response to people claiming that sustainable harvesting would be a solution.
Sustainable harvesting could be part of a solution, but there are not enough elephants in existence to meet the demand. The 12 ton ivory burn in 1989 brought awareness to the problem and greatly reduced demand in Western countries, but a similar event would be unlikely to affect Chinese demand.
(Score: 1) by Francis on Monday October 24 2016, @03:12PM
Perhaps a hundred years ago when there were more animals for harvesting and a large price increase might have worked, but this isn't like drugs where the ingredients are mostly inexpensive and would be easily obtained without government interference.
Legalizing drugs probably would reduce the price considerably, but we don't have a problem with a shortage, we have a problem with too many people not giving a shit about the consequences of their actions rather than a possible future where nobody knows how to make drugs.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Monday October 24 2016, @08:28PM
The problem with any legal trade is that it legitimizes poachers. With CITES schedule I, almost anyone in possession of ivory is automatically assumed guilty. Take that away and enforcement becomes a game of detecting forgery and other deceptions.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 3, Informative) by Thexalon on Monday October 24 2016, @01:35PM
Here's what you're missing: The Tragedy of the commons [wikipedia.org]. It's an issue that's been studied since at least the 1830's.
In this case, the population of wild elephants isn't owned by anybody, and there's no specific price placed on killing them for their ivory. That means that what controls the supply is outside of the control of any individual supplier of ivory. And as the population of elephants starts dropping, all that any individual poacher can do is try to get as many of the remaining elephants for themselves as possible - if they don't shoot them, somebody else will, and then their industry is just as screwed. So what's needed is collective action on the part of the poachers to save the entire industry, but seeing as how everything is illegal with regards to the ivory trade, that will never happen.
A similar situation happened with the Atlantic lobster, where the population started dropping after the lobstermen started overfishing, and it took a government response and collective action on the part of everybody in the lobster industry to allow the population to recover. As you can imagine, that caused big challenges for the economies of Maine and North Carolina, but it saved the industry.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 2) by canopic jug on Monday October 24 2016, @01:57PM
Money is not free speech. Elections should not be auctions.
(Score: 3, Informative) by VLM on Monday October 24 2016, @04:57PM
Wiped out in '92. for a couple years boaters could buy cheap fishing boats in general new england area. Seriously fast collapse, from a real business in the 80s to its done, everyones unemployed. Water is empty, bye bye.
That was the "Atlantic cod" you might be thinking of the "Greenland" or "North Sea" cod which have been on the border of being wiped out for a decade or so. Would not be surprised to see a collapse.
Pacific stocks are super regulated and doing pretty well.
Genuine Atlantic Cod from my youth tasted a lot better than the junk from greenland and pacific sold today.
AFAIK the great lakes are for all practical purposes wiped. Old sailors will tell stories about having to navigate around nets and the weird buoy systems some nets were marked with and getting tangled but now a days you're incredibly unlikely to ever run across commercial great lakes fishing. However, it does exist at least on paper and there's a handful of boats still fishing, mostly for generic whitefish (aka cat food) and perch (eh, not bad). Used to be a major industry with accompanying canning factories up and down the coasts of the great lakes... all that is gone. Oh and lake michigan still has sturgeon, perhaps the ugliest weirdest fish people eat.
(Score: 2) by mhajicek on Monday October 24 2016, @03:24PM
Perhaps bovines could be genetically engineered to grow ivory.
The spacelike surfaces of time foliations can have a cusp at the surface of discontinuity. - P. Hajicek
(Score: 2) by jdavidb on Monday October 24 2016, @02:32PM
ⓋⒶ☮✝🕊 Secession is the right of all sentient beings
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 24 2016, @03:56PM
No, regulating effects cannot occur because this is frikin' Africa.
(Score: 2) by julian on Monday October 24 2016, @03:53PM
Harvest at a sustainable rate
Good luck getting Chinese who believe in "traditional" medicine to do this. They'd happily shoot the last elephant on Earth for its ivory
(Score: 3, Interesting) by t-3 on Tuesday October 25 2016, @03:42AM
Even if this doesn't produce enough ivory to curb demand, there is apparently big money in elephant meat [wikipedia.org] . Convince enough people that elephant ranching is good business and the problem might be solved.