An argument for community based conservation. Simon Jenkins writes in the Guardian:
The war on ivory, like the war on drugs, intensifies demand. Legalise the trade and breed the animals for their tusks
The war on ivory, like the war on drugs, intensifies demand. Legalise the trade and breed the animals for their tusks
More here...in the 1980s an argument took place between ivory-producing southern Africa and western wildlife charities. The Africans, notably South Africa, Namibia and Tanzania, argued that conservation was best achieved if local people had a vested interest in it – whether from tourism, controlled hunting or ivory sales. As long as people craved ivory, the alternative was massive poaching.
Illustration: Satoshi Kambayashi
The American writer Raymond Bonner, in his book At the Hand of Man, described how US charity fundraisers overwhelmed the Africans. Big money required "charismatic megaspecies" to be saved from imminent extinction. The elephant was declared endangered when it was not. The world was flooded with pictures of mangled animals and in 1989, the trade in ivory and horn was banned.
Every prediction made by the Africans was right. Prices soared. In 10 years elephant numbers halved, and have continued to plunge by another two thirds. An estimated 22,000 African elephants are killed annually in industrial massacres. The Asian elephant faces extinction. Rhino deaths have gone from a handful a year to more than a thousand, with horns the price per kilo of gold.
