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Remember Economics 101: Reduce the supply of something and you'll only make the reward of obtaining it that much higher. You need to kill demand for this stuff

Remember Economics 101: Reduce the supply of something and you'll only make the reward of obtaining it that much higher. You need to kill demand for this stuff, or you need to sabotage the market so the supply is through the roof like the team making fake rhino horn is doing: http://www.iflscience.com/technology/fake-rhino-horn-fight-poaching/ http://www.iflscience.com/technology/fake-rhino-horn-fight-p... Shooting drug dealers, for example, doesn't make people not want to be drug dealers, it just kills off competition and makes the surviving dealers earn way, way more money.

M_Grey 10y ago
There aren't that many elephants left to guard, and there isn't an infinite supply of poachers. Unlike dealing drugs, for which the supply is worldwide and can be hidden, and for which no particular skills or guts are required, hunting elephants is not so simple or stealthy. I'm happy to attack this from both ends though.
- astrodust 10y ago
  Elephants aren't content to sit in one spot, they wander over considerable distances and between many different countries. This makes them a lot harder to police than, say, a captive bear. You can have all the guards in the world attached to these elephants but guards are human and they'll get lazy doing nothing. When they let themselves slip, someone will be there to take advantage of their lapse. This is a game you can't win by protecting the animals alone. You need to kill demand, you need to make the risk way, way too high for the potential payoff. One thing you could do to incentivize protecting elephants is offer a payout for a given herd. If someone poaching an elephant costs you money you'd be motivated to protect them, so long as the protection money is greater than any reward for poaching. Hopefully over time we'll have more technology based solutions like drones that can spot poachers long before they're a threat or civilians who will snitch out poachers because their livelihood is at stake.
  - M_Grey 10y ago
    "Hopefully over time" will leave us with the tech and not the elephants. There's no reason not to both attack demand, and supply at the same time. Even if the result is less than perfect, delay at this point will allow for that tech you mentioned.
    - astrodust 10y ago
      I'm not in a position to shorten that time by, say, pitching a Y-Combinator start-up proposal to buy some military grade drones with thermal imaging systems and deploy these over areas with vulnerable elephant tribes, but you're welcome to try. People will Kickstarter some pretty crazy things, so maybe theres's a business to be had here. If the local authorities permit selling of naming rights, who knows how high the bidding could get.
      - M_Grey 10y ago
        I'd rather invest that same money in multiple shifts of spotters and snipers, and cash bounties for middlemen.
        astrodust 10y ago
        I don't think you recognize how big an area you have to patrol and how many threats you have to protect against. Africa is huge and the area that elephant herds wander over is perhaps as large as continental USA. It's that big. I doubt your approach would work in some place as contained as Texas. It might work in a place like Hawaii, if, say, raptor poaching at the local dinosaur exhibit was a problem.
        M_Grey 10y ago
        Elephants have a wide range, but it's not as though they teleport across that range in the dead of night. They're large, you can track their calls for miles, and they often take predictable routes for their entire lives. You don't need to protect empty land, you just need to have rotating teams covering the elephants.
jordigh 10y ago
I don't know if fake rhino horns will help. 90% of all horns on the market are already fake (either bison horns or wood carving), and demand hasn't stopped. Adding fake horns into the market just seems to legitimise it and increases the deman for the real thing. Just like diamonds, where synthetic but identical diamonds haven't stopped for real diamonds, I don't see how fake rhino horns can help. I think what needs to be done is a massive and widespread campaign in Vietnam of education about rhino superstition and shaming of those who contribute to the extinction of the rhino.
- astrodust 10y ago
  Synthetic diamonds has eaten into the real diamond market, don't kid yourself. They're having to work a lot harder for much smaller profits. There's also a lot of effort from the diamond mining conglomerates to fight against synthetic diamonds. The poachers have no such capability, they're just doing it for money and will move on to whatever else pays better the moment poaching isn't profitable. It's a two part thing: Increase supply, cut demand. You can't expect miracles without working both angles aggressively, and we've only just started with truly "fake" horns that test as the real thing.

M_Grey 10y ago

There aren't that many elephants left to guard, and there isn't an infinite supply of poachers. Unlike dealing drugs, for which the supply is worldwide and can be hidden, and for which no particular skills or guts are required, hunting elephants is not so simple or stealthy. I'm happy to attack this from both ends though.

astrodust 10y ago
Elephants aren't content to sit in one spot, they wander over considerable distances and between many different countries. This makes them a lot harder to police than, say, a captive bear. You can have all the guards in the world attached to these elephants but guards are human and they'll get lazy doing nothing. When they let themselves slip, someone will be there to take advantage of their lapse. This is a game you can't win by protecting the animals alone. You need to kill demand, you need to make the risk way, way too high for the potential payoff. One thing you could do to incentivize protecting elephants is offer a payout for a given herd. If someone poaching an elephant costs you money you'd be motivated to protect them, so long as the protection money is greater than any reward for poaching. Hopefully over time we'll have more technology based solutions like drones that can spot poachers long before they're a threat or civilians who will snitch out poachers because their livelihood is at stake.
- M_Grey 10y ago
  "Hopefully over time" will leave us with the tech and not the elephants. There's no reason not to both attack demand, and supply at the same time. Even if the result is less than perfect, delay at this point will allow for that tech you mentioned.
  - astrodust 10y ago
    I'm not in a position to shorten that time by, say, pitching a Y-Combinator start-up proposal to buy some military grade drones with thermal imaging systems and deploy these over areas with vulnerable elephant tribes, but you're welcome to try. People will Kickstarter some pretty crazy things, so maybe theres's a business to be had here. If the local authorities permit selling of naming rights, who knows how high the bidding could get.
    - M_Grey 10y ago
      I'd rather invest that same money in multiple shifts of spotters and snipers, and cash bounties for middlemen.
      - astrodust 10y ago
        I don't think you recognize how big an area you have to patrol and how many threats you have to protect against. Africa is huge and the area that elephant herds wander over is perhaps as large as continental USA. It's that big. I doubt your approach would work in some place as contained as Texas. It might work in a place like Hawaii, if, say, raptor poaching at the local dinosaur exhibit was a problem.
        M_Grey 10y ago
        Elephants have a wide range, but it's not as though they teleport across that range in the dead of night. They're large, you can track their calls for miles, and they often take predictable routes for their entire lives. You don't need to protect empty land, you just need to have rotating teams covering the elephants.

jordigh 10y ago

I don't know if fake rhino horns will help. 90% of all horns on the market are already fake (either bison horns or wood carving), and demand hasn't stopped. Adding fake horns into the market just seems to legitimise it and increases the deman for the real thing. Just like diamonds, where synthetic but identical diamonds haven't stopped for real diamonds, I don't see how fake rhino horns can help. I think what needs to be done is a massive and widespread campaign in Vietnam of education about rhino superstition and shaming of those who contribute to the extinction of the rhino.

astrodust 10y ago
Synthetic diamonds has eaten into the real diamond market, don't kid yourself. They're having to work a lot harder for much smaller profits. There's also a lot of effort from the diamond mining conglomerates to fight against synthetic diamonds. The poachers have no such capability, they're just doing it for money and will move on to whatever else pays better the moment poaching isn't profitable. It's a two part thing: Increase supply, cut demand. You can't expect miracles without working both angles aggressively, and we've only just started with truly "fake" horns that test as the real thing.