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Interesting approach and political statement, but the economist in me really doesn't like it. It seems like making ivory scarce is going to encourage more poac

by mizzao 11y ago

Interesting approach and political statement, but the economist in me really doesn't like it. It seems like making ivory scarce is going to encourage more poaching since demand is high and poaching lucrative. Another approach would have been to dump (or slowly sell) the 105 tons of ivory on the market, driving down prices drastically such that poaching would be very unprofitable. It's unclear if this would have a net positive or negative effect on the long-term demand for ivory, but it seems it would almost certainly reduce poaching in the near future.

dalke 11y ago
The goal is to have no market. Your inner economist thinks there must be a market. These two are at odds. Your inner economist is correct. There will always be a black market. The goal then is to change the demand. One way is to change the social understanding. Take "blood diamonds" as an example. That was a social movement to tie diamonds to diamond production used to fund wars and atrocities. That was enough of a concern that the diamond industry started to certify the origin of their diamonds. By publicly declaring "ivory has no worth", and with visual displays like this, it makes the point that it's simply not acceptable to have any trade in ivory, and that even possession isn't worthy goal. If there is a market of "legal" ivory, it becomes harder to identify illegal ivory. We see that now, where people will advertise that a given ivory is pre-ban even though it isn't. Also, if the government starts to get an income stream from selling captured poached ivory, I think the government will start to plan its budget around that income. I think about the various places which marketed a state lottery plan as a supplemental income source for schools or historic preservation, only to find that it became a way to shift away existing funding, making the schools, etc. dependent on lottery income.

by mizzao 11y ago

dalke 11y ago

The goal is to have no market. Your inner economist thinks there must be a market. These two are at odds. Your inner economist is correct. There will always be a black market. The goal then is to change the demand. One way is to change the social understanding. Take "blood diamonds" as an example. That was a social movement to tie diamonds to diamond production used to fund wars and atrocities. That was enough of a concern that the diamond industry started to certify the origin of their diamonds. By publicly declaring "ivory has no worth", and with visual displays like this, it makes the point that it's simply not acceptable to have any trade in ivory, and that even possession isn't worthy goal. If there is a market of "legal" ivory, it becomes harder to identify illegal ivory. We see that now, where people will advertise that a given ivory is pre-ban even though it isn't. Also, if the government starts to get an income stream from selling captured poached ivory, I think the government will start to plan its budget around that income. I think about the various places which marketed a state lottery plan as a supplemental income source for schools or historic preservation, only to find that it became a way to shift away existing funding, making the schools, etc. dependent on lottery income.