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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: 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.
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(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.
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