INTRODUCTION
Elephants in the wild are in danger. ‘Save the Elephants’, a charity organization based in Kenya, estimated that roughly 100,000 elephants had been poached for their ivory tusks in Africa, between the year 2010 and 2012. It seems like we have forgotten that elephants are an intrinsic part of our global heritage, and thus, they should be stewarded for upcoming generations, instead of being fenced into “fortress conservation” efforts. We must strive to find ways of co-existing with elephants in a way that benefits the communities in Africa – and the elephants themselves.
One way to mitigate the precarity elephants are facing (due to the demand for their ivory) is to start actively working to reduce that demand. Such campaigns are vital in the long- term fight against poaching and policy changes like domestic ivory trade bans can further supplement these campaigns.
IVORY TRADE SCALE AND DEMAND
The data on ivory markets are currently available for only two principal areas of the world, i.e., Asia and Africa, although a report on parts of Europe is in preparation (E. Martin & D. Stiles, unpublished report). Asia is more difficult to assess than Africa, because the markets there rely on raw ivory from both the Asian and African elephants, while in Africa only African tusks are used. Unfortunately, there is almost no data available to assess the implementation of the Asian elephant ivory trade ban enacted in 1973.
To analyze this further, we should look at the indicators that are used in the assessment of the scale of these markets: - the price of raw ivory, number of active ivory craftsmen, number of workshops, number of retail outlets selling ivory, and the number/weight of ivory items perceived to be for sale. The gross domestic product (GDP) inflator index, should then be applied to the past prices, to render them comparable to the prices of 2002 [Martin and Stiles (2000, 2002, 2003) are indeed the ones to be credited for gathering data for these indicators in Asia and Africa].
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Had the trade ban been effective, we would’ve seen lower value for each indicator except the raw ivory prices after 1990, reflecting the effects of a supply restriction. If the demand had
remained constant, the price for raw ivory should have increased in countries with fewer or no elephants and fallen in countries with an abundant population of elephants.
However, the comparisons reflect expected values post-1990, in the following aspects:
(1) In China, the number of workshops and the number of craftsmen decreased;
(2) Hong Kong and Taiwan also had a decreased number of craftsmen;
(3) In Japan the number of craftsmen had decreased too;
(4) Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) had decreased rates of raw ivory and a fall in the number of workshops; and
(5) Gabon, where the price of raw ivory, the number of retail outlets, and the weight of items for sale had decreased as well.
Effectiveness of the CITES Ivory Trade Ban
The objective behind the ban was the assumption that ending the legal supply of ivory by stopping the sale of ivory in international markets would result in a commendable reduction of elephant poaching thus conserving the threatened population of the elephants. But we have to examine two phenomena closely to understand whether this assumption turned out to be correct, namely- the scale of national ivory markets and the rate of elephant poaching prior to and after the 1989 CITES ban.
For this, the early 1990 was selected as the threshold date because that is when the ban was implemented in most of the countries. Now, if the national ivory markets had decreased substantially in size after 1990, it should have also led to decreased elephant poaching. This is because it is assumed that ivory markets and poaching are closely interlinked since the former corresponds to demand and the latter represents supply in the current ban context. However, this has not been the case.
CONCLUSION
From the above-presented data, one thing is for certain- the ban will only be effective if it is limitless with respect to time. Why you ask? It’s because wholesale speculators might actually be getting incentivized to hoard ivory now and wait until the ban is lifted. If, for instance, they expect the ban to be lifted after, say, ten years then they would poach living stock now in anticipation of gaining future monopoly rents when the market re-opens.
In case, if the market was unlikely to ever re-open, then they would either have to conduct all their sales activity illegally or dump all their stock in the market now itself. The latter would actually lead to a reliable future for elephant conservation, as it would bring ivory prices downwards which, despite an initial potential rise in quantity demanded, will eventually disincentivize poaching.
This is also why, conclusively, the Chinese authorities should enact an explicit and indefinite ban while taking steps to indicate, monitor and communicate progress. By doing this, they will signal credibility and prevent speculators from believing that the regulators are not serious about the ivory trade market shutdown.
By Eshita Nirwan
Sources:
https://saiia.org.za/
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