Legalising trade in endangered species products - morally bankrupt or a conservation aid?

A legal trade in rhino, elephant and tiger products. Morally bankrupt? Or the only hope to prevent their extinction?

Last Thursday I visited the Royal Geographical Society to attend the Earthwatch Institute's Big Debate of 2013 - "Bone of Contention" to address the question:

"Is it time to reconsider a legal global trade in tiger, elephant, and rhino products?"

The current CITES (Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora) listings prohibit trade in products such as rhino horn, elephant ivory and tiger bone. The sad truth is, however, that all this has really achieved is to push trade underground. Prohibition of supply does nothing to stop the demand, and the black market for these illegal products is still clearly thriving. This year rhino poaching has reached a tipping point with an average of 2-3 rhinos killed every day, and an estimated total of 900-1000 by the end of the year. We lose 1 tiger every day, an elephant every fifteen minutes⁴. And the killing doesn't stop there, with the heavy militarization of the "war" on poaching claiming victims on both sides - rangers and rustlers alike. The monetary costs aren't small either, with conservation resources being redirected to fund the
fight against poaching.

As a knee-jerk reaction, however, allowing trade in products derived from such well-loved, charismatic, and most importantly threatened species seems at the very least to be counter-intuitive if not morally unpalatable. But the fact is that the bans are not working. We need to find an alternative, fast, and some believe that legalizing trade could do more to save these species than an ineffective ban.

So what would a legalized trade in rhino horns look like?

The answer was laid out in an article published in Science back in March by Dr Duan Biggs et al. (who also spoke on the panel for legalized trade at the debate).

Rhino horn is made of keratin - the same material as our hair and fingernails - and therefore it regrows when it is cut. So instead of a poacher killing the rhino and cutting out its entire horn, rhinos would be "farmed" on private conservation land and their horns shaved, yielding an average of 0.9kg per White Rhino a year⁷ (plus a 2.6% natural death rate of rhinos for extra horn provisions). Frequent, humane harvesting would allow you to get eight times more than you would by killing the animal for a single horn³.

The main ambition is that the income generated from the sale of certified farmed rhino horn would fund rhino protection and create jobs, therefore providing an incentive for local people to manage populations sustainably and ensure their long-term survival. Instead of being a heavily aid-dependent species, rhinos would, in theory, then produce funding for their own conservation.

Admittedly, it seems a sorry state of affairs when species have to "earn their keep" in such away but, as Kirsten Conrad explained at the debate, it is this attitude which fuels the black market in illegal animal products⁴. Conrad argued that in Asian cultures the dominant motivation for the conservation of wildlife is for its use to humans (as opposed to its intrinsic value or its contribution to ecosystem function and biodiversity for example). This, she says, is the main reason the bans do not work. Whether we like it or not, the fate of these species is largely in the hands of the people who use these products and fuel the illegal trade. Rhino horn has been used in Asian medicine for millennia, and, despite the complete lack of science to support its effectiveness, it's not about to go out of fashion any time soon. The culturally imperialistic practice of telling other countries that their traditional medicines do not work and their beliefs are wrong doesn't exactly help to get them on our side either (now there's a science communication challenge for you!). If bans are not aligned to public values they will not work, you need to filter your message through people's value systems, and, Conrad argued, a legalized trade is one way to approach this.

Of course it's not quite that simple, the key issue being how to prevent, or at least reduce the incentive for illegal poaching to continue on the sidelines. The case put forward at the debate was to compete directly with the criminals in order to make illegal trade less desirable. For
this to be achieved:

(i) regulators need to prevent the laundering of a threatening level of illegal supply under the cover of a legal trade;

(ii) the legal supply must deliver the product (horn) more easily, reliably, and cost-effectively than the illegal trade;

(iii) the demand must not escalate to dangerous levels as the stigma associated with the illegality of the product is removed; and

(iv) legally harvested horns from live animals must substitute for horns obtained from wild, poached animals

(Biggs et al 2013)

The second point, keeping costs down, is currently one of the main stumbling blocks. If you cannot keep the product cheap then the chances of a black market emerging would increase. In order to provide a cheap, readily available product you need enough rhinos, tigers or elephants to maintain a steady supply. Critics would argue that this is not feasible, especially given the difficulties of breeding these kinds of animals in captivity. For elephants this is particularly difficult as not only do they only grow one set of tusks in their lifetime, they also have a gestation period of 22 months with 4-5 years between calves. You then have the high costs of keeping and policing populations of these large, dangerous animals, not to mention the administration and transition costs of establishing the trading system in the first place. There is also the risk that once these products are legalized the demand for them will actually increase, making it even more difficult to maintain supply and keep prices low enough to deter poachers from trying to undercut the trade price.

Consequently, there is a danger that wild products will always be cheaper than those that have been farmed. There is also, as Dr Nowak explained, a cachet associated with the ownership of rare, illegal objects, with "wild" products being deemed more desirable than farmed ones⁸. T

This presents yet another problem - how do you ensure that illegal products do not find their way onto the legal trade market. There has been talk recently of micro-chipping rhino horns, but if the horn is sold as a powdered product, how could you be sure of it's origin? Permits and I.D cards can be easily faked, turning the legal trade into a screen for more illegal activity. If a legalised trade would be just as difficult to police as an outright ban, it could be better to invest in enforcing the ban more effectively than introducing a whole new high-regulated trading system. As those in opposition at the conference argued, at least with a ban you know that all the products are illegal rather than having to spend time and money distinguishing between the two.

Can legal trade really be a conservation success?

The ultimate aim of the debate at this stage is to determine which option holds most promise for the survival of these animals. But where conservation is concerned simply surviving is not enough. With a legal trading system that relies on farmed products, there is a risk that these animals will one day only survive on a farm, effectively making them extinct in the wild. Rhinos, tigers and elephants are all pivotal species in their respective habitats, if they survive only on farms then we have still failed in our efforts to save these species and the important roles that they play in their ecosystems. The tourist industry could also take a hit as sightseers would most likely rather see a wild rhino with a horn than a farmed rhino without one.

The verdict of the debate was that most people voted against a legal global trade in tiger, rhino and elephant products - but, perhaps surprisingly, not by that many. The reason probably being that the alternative is not an easy one. If we don't legalize trade then we must find a way to stop it, completely - stamp out the black market and enforce the current bans. For this the opposition argued that we need better enforcement on the ground, more seizures of products, interception of cartels, and a system which provides benefits and incentives for local people - no meagre task.

If we cannot do more to fight poaching and enforce the ban before it's too late, we may have to face the harsh truth that there are no palatable choices left. If legalizing trade is our only alternative, we have to decide: is a live, farmed rhino without a horn really better than no rhino at all?

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So what do you think? Could a legal trade help to ensure these species' survival? Or would it increase the risk of extinction even further? Cast your vote using the poll and leave a comment with your thoughts. ___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

References:

1. BBC. Kenya to microchip every rhino in anti-poaching drive. BBC News October 16, 2013.
2. Biggs, D., Courchamp, F., Martin, R., Possingham, H. P. Legal Trade of Africa's Rhino Horns. Science 339 1038-1039 (2013).
3. Biggs, D. 2013. Bone of Contention: Is it time to reconsider a legal global n tiger, elephant and rhino products? The Big Earthwatch Debate at the Royal Geographical Society, London, 17^th October 2013.
4. Conrad, K. 2013. Bone of Contention: Is it time to reconsider a legal global n tiger, elephant and rhino products? The Big Earthwatch Debate at the Royal Geographical Society, London, 17^th October 2013.
5. Davies, G. 2013. Bone of Contention: Is it time to reconsider a legal global n tiger, elephant and rhino products? The Big Earthwatch Debate at the Royal Geographical Society, London, 17^th October 2013.
6. Kings, S. Rhino deaths reach tipping point. Mail & Guardian September 27, 2013.
7. Lindsay, P. A. Taylor, A. A study on the dehorning of African Rhinoceroses as a tool to reduce the risk of poaching Endangered Wildlife Trust and the South African Department of Environmental Affairs, Johannesburg, South Africa (2011).
   
8. Nowak, K. 2013. Bone of Contention: Is it time to reconsider a legal global n tiger, elephant and rhino products? The Big Earthwatch Debate at the Royal Geographical Society, London, 17^th October 2013.
9. Rice, M. 2013. Bone of Contention: Is it time to reconsider a legal global n tiger, elephant and rhino products? The Big Earthwatch Debate at the Royal Geographical Society, London, 17^th October 2013.
10. Welz, A. The war on African poaching: is militarisation doomed to fail? The Guardian. August 13, 2013.

Photo credits:

1. Rhino - by Slices of Light on Flickr
2. Ivory trade - Wikimedia commons

Edited: 05/11/2013 - deletion of reference to differences in prices of wild and farmed tiger skins due to uncertainties in values and cause of this contrast.