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This is like saying, in response to a crackdown on mugging, "I hope the muggers get the assistance they need to get new skills and not move on to other crimes."

This is like saying, in response to a crackdown on mugging, "I hope the muggers get the assistance they need to get new skills and not move on to other crimes." I'd prefer if the poachers actually all got arrested, and got new skills breaking big rocks into smaller rocks.

fma 10y ago
Your line of thinking is why the "War on Drugs" is a failure. If you think people want to hunt elephants, deal drugs, or mug for a living, you haven't thought hard enough on the socioeconomic problem that plagues the poor.
- adamnemecek 10y ago
  The war on drugs comparison is really commonly compared with war on illegal wildlife, however the two differ pretty drastically once you stop thinking of them as just "bans on things". For example, the prevention strategies for these two are vastly different. Furthermore, a.) There are legal drugs and substances that can be used to manufacture illegal drugs. You cannot fully outlaw these, unlike wildlife animal products. b.) IIRC the vast majority of illegal wildlife products come to the US (and US is large consumer of illegal wildlife products) via ships (as opposed to by plane or truck) and is only a handful of ports that need to be secured. There is like an infinite number of potential access points for drugs. And even if you succeed 100% in preventing smuggling attempts, you will still have domestic manufacturers. c.) The reason why the two are banned are really different to. With wildlife poaching, the damage is done during the "manufacturing" of the products, whereas with drugs it's mostly the consumption and trade that cause the damage.
fma 10y ago
Reading material for you from the president of Columbia, citing the failures of the War on Drugs. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/apr/18/colombia-united-nations-assembly-war-on-drugs https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/apr/18/colombia-unite... "“We need to provide social and economic alternatives to small growers of illegal crops and other vulnerable communities in order to create the necessary conditions to bring them back to legality,” wrote Santos in an opinion piece in the Observer." And your analogy of the mugging is invalid. In mugging there's two parties, the mugger and the victim. The war on drugs is the closest analogy. It is an illegal trade, just like ivory. There's three parties. The grower, seller, and buyer. If you do not get the grower, in this case, the ivory hunter, a legal path to providing food for their family, it will be a failure, just like the crackdown on cocaine for the last 30 years.
- adamnemecek 10y ago
  > We need to provide social and economic alternatives to small growers of illegal crops and other vulnerable communities in order to create the necessary conditions to bring them back to legality, We don't want legality. The reason why the situation is really bad currently is because back in 2008, CITES lifted restrictions on ivory sales which allowed several African nations to sell their ivory stockpiles to China and Japan. The current situation is believed to be a direct result of this and the demand has skyrocket since then. In 80's, there was a similar poaching crisis, what eventually put an end to it was making as much of the trade as possible illegal. War on drugs and poaching are similar only on the superficial level. Read my comment below where I talk about it.
  - zimzam 10y ago
    The "them" in this sentence is the farmers not the drugs: the quote is arguing for giving the farmers a path to a legal livelihood. Similarly the parent is arguing for legal alternatives to poaching as desperate, starving people will always care about feeding their families more than an arbitrary law.
    - adamnemecek 10y ago
      Oh, thanks, I did have a hard time understanding that sentence. It's true that the people need something else to feed their families, however western and Asian countries will have an easier time banning these products than providing these alternatives. If the demand goes away, so will the supply.
- tn13 10y ago
  Totally agree. War on Drugs is a failure and Ivory trade ban would be another failure. Government wants to ban something which people want and some people willing to supply. Unless someone has strong private property right over elephants I don't see how these people are going to change. Ban might increase cost and risks and might lead to serious exploitation of the foot soldiers in this business but it is not going to be good for animals. China could have imported 1000 elephants and could farmed them for their ivory.
rwallace 10y ago
If a mugger is caught, I'm very much in favor of giving him a hefty prison sentence. However, if you want a sustained decline in the violent crime rate in a whole society, law enforcement is only part of the picture. You absolutely do have to do something about the root causes, the socio-economic factors that were giving a generation of young men the feeling that they had nothing better to do than mug people. It's not about sympathy for criminals. It's about doing things that actually work, not just things that feel righteous.

fma 10y ago

Your line of thinking is why the "War on Drugs" is a failure. If you think people want to hunt elephants, deal drugs, or mug for a living, you haven't thought hard enough on the socioeconomic problem that plagues the poor.

adamnemecek 10y ago
The war on drugs comparison is really commonly compared with war on illegal wildlife, however the two differ pretty drastically once you stop thinking of them as just "bans on things". For example, the prevention strategies for these two are vastly different. Furthermore, a.) There are legal drugs and substances that can be used to manufacture illegal drugs. You cannot fully outlaw these, unlike wildlife animal products. b.) IIRC the vast majority of illegal wildlife products come to the US (and US is large consumer of illegal wildlife products) via ships (as opposed to by plane or truck) and is only a handful of ports that need to be secured. There is like an infinite number of potential access points for drugs. And even if you succeed 100% in preventing smuggling attempts, you will still have domestic manufacturers. c.) The reason why the two are banned are really different to. With wildlife poaching, the damage is done during the "manufacturing" of the products, whereas with drugs it's mostly the consumption and trade that cause the damage.

fma 10y ago

Reading material for you from the president of Columbia, citing the failures of the War on Drugs. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/apr/18/colombia-united-nations-assembly-war-on-drugs https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/apr/18/colombia-unite... "“We need to provide social and economic alternatives to small growers of illegal crops and other vulnerable communities in order to create the necessary conditions to bring them back to legality,” wrote Santos in an opinion piece in the Observer." And your analogy of the mugging is invalid. In mugging there's two parties, the mugger and the victim. The war on drugs is the closest analogy. It is an illegal trade, just like ivory. There's three parties. The grower, seller, and buyer. If you do not get the grower, in this case, the ivory hunter, a legal path to providing food for their family, it will be a failure, just like the crackdown on cocaine for the last 30 years.

adamnemecek 10y ago
> We need to provide social and economic alternatives to small growers of illegal crops and other vulnerable communities in order to create the necessary conditions to bring them back to legality, We don't want legality. The reason why the situation is really bad currently is because back in 2008, CITES lifted restrictions on ivory sales which allowed several African nations to sell their ivory stockpiles to China and Japan. The current situation is believed to be a direct result of this and the demand has skyrocket since then. In 80's, there was a similar poaching crisis, what eventually put an end to it was making as much of the trade as possible illegal. War on drugs and poaching are similar only on the superficial level. Read my comment below where I talk about it.
- zimzam 10y ago
  The "them" in this sentence is the farmers not the drugs: the quote is arguing for giving the farmers a path to a legal livelihood. Similarly the parent is arguing for legal alternatives to poaching as desperate, starving people will always care about feeding their families more than an arbitrary law.
  - adamnemecek 10y ago
    Oh, thanks, I did have a hard time understanding that sentence. It's true that the people need something else to feed their families, however western and Asian countries will have an easier time banning these products than providing these alternatives. If the demand goes away, so will the supply.
tn13 10y ago
Totally agree. War on Drugs is a failure and Ivory trade ban would be another failure. Government wants to ban something which people want and some people willing to supply. Unless someone has strong private property right over elephants I don't see how these people are going to change. Ban might increase cost and risks and might lead to serious exploitation of the foot soldiers in this business but it is not going to be good for animals. China could have imported 1000 elephants and could farmed them for their ivory.

rwallace 10y ago

If a mugger is caught, I'm very much in favor of giving him a hefty prison sentence. However, if you want a sustained decline in the violent crime rate in a whole society, law enforcement is only part of the picture. You absolutely do have to do something about the root causes, the socio-economic factors that were giving a generation of young men the feeling that they had nothing better to do than mug people. It's not about sympathy for criminals. It's about doing things that actually work, not just things that feel righteous.