GAIA

Elephants, ivory and science

I am not anti-elephant and I do not endorse illegal poaching, but I do believe the current approach of governments and animal preservation organizations will continue to fail dismally.

Time magazine in its September 8 – 15, issue has a full page ad on page 19 lamenting the slaughter of African elephants. It states that 96 are killed each day!!!  It asks for your support at 96elephants.org.

Elephant tusk ivory is highly prized as a soft material for ornate large and miniature carvings - traditional crafts throughout the Middle East, Southeast Asia, China and Japan. Tusk ivory has also long been used for piano keys, guitar and violin bows -- because of their beauty, malleability and soft touch.  Plastic is a poor substitute.

 

THE DUAL  PROBLEM

The current approach to protecting African elephants in the wild has been a dismal failure while costing multi-millions of dollars.

Poachers are rarely caught while more and more rangers are hired to unsuccessfully patrol enormous, vast open areas.  And the poacher ‘bosses’ --who reap the great profits -- are invisible and untouchable.

When poached tusks are found, they are stored and then, multi-millions of dollars’ worth of ivory are piled high and turned into a huge bonfire -- to be photographed or filmed: to show the world such ill-gotten gains are not socially acceptable.

 

But this mass ivory destruction is simply counter-productive and stupid.  

It violates the first rule of economics: supply and demand.

Solution #1

Instead of destroying the ivory, it should be sold through a UN-like international agency at either a controlled rate or en masse -- to flood the marketplace and drop its market price/value; thereby bankrupting the 'bosses'  and supplying artisan and craftsmen and guitar and piano and other manufacturers with a superior, natural product, without the need to kill hundreds if not thousands of additional elephants.

The ivory of dead elephants should also be saved as well as any tusks that have broken off.

As for the rest of the dead elephants, there is an African market for such bush meat, and their hides and other elephant parts are also valuable and should not be left to rot.

At one time, hollowed out elephant legs were popular as umbrella stands.

 

Solution #2  -- which is much, much better

Apply modern breakthroughs in stem cell cloning and create artificial, identical tusks in the laboratory  -- for legal sale.

Elephants would be saved, related government costs eliminated, and 3,000 year old cultural traditions and skills preserved.