Legalising International Trade in Rhino Horn ???

[Richprins]

Poaching is increasing anyway...was doing so before the announcement? A long leap of logic!

[Toko]

Why plans to legalise rhino-horn trade will fail
BY GAVIN KEETON (economics department at Rhodes University), 30 SEPTEMBER 2013


A RECENT study in Vietnam, sponsored by the World Wildlife Fund (WWF), reveals that demand for rhino horn may be much larger than previously thought. It shows that, in addition to consumers of rhino horn, there is a large group of "intenders" — people who intend to buy rhino horn when they can afford it. The study shows that rhino horn is bought not just for traditional medical purposes, but also as a status symbol. Rapid growth in living standards means the number of people who could become consumers of rhino horn is potentially enormous.

These findings cast doubt on the viability of proposals, supported by the South African government, to introduce a legalised, regulated market in rhino horn. Supporters of such an approach believe a regulated market offers a better chance for the survival of the world’s remaining rhinos than a ban on all trade. They argue that a ban on trade has perverse consequences — it raises the price of horn and so increases the incentive for poachers. By contrast, this view suggests that legal sales of stockpiled rhino horns, plus the dehorning of live rhinos to sell their horns, would drive down prices, reducing the incentive to poach.

But this will not happen if future demand is likely to exceed the supply of stockpiled and harvested horns.

The problems associated with a regulated market for rhino horn are addressed in a recent paper by Alan Collins of the University of Portsmouth and Gavin Fraser and Jen Snowball of Rhodes University. They warn that there is no sure way of forecasting demand for rhino horn in a legalised, regulated market. The current price of rhino horn exceeds the price of platinum, cocaine and heroin. This suggests that potential demand for horn is far greater than what is met through illegal poaching at present. This is confirmed by the WWF study. Moreover, there is no way of knowing how much the stigma and fear of being caught buying illegal rhino horn affects demand. Such restraints would disappear by legalising rhino-horn trade, and demand could soar, outstripping all efforts to increase supply.

Collins, Fraser and Snowball warn also that increasing supply may be harder than is sometimes thought. They note that rhino horn grows about 6cm a year and this could potentially be harvested to increase supply under a formal dehorning programme. But increasing the breeding rate of rhinos to be dehorned is complicated by their small genetic pool and the time it will take for numbers to rise. The large areas rhinos require for habitat means protecting these rhinos being bred for their horns from poachers will be enormously costly. The price of live rhinos has been falling because game farms can no longer afford to protect their rhinos.

Funding security for rhinos in a captive breeding programme will require government and international support. It also requires that harvested horn prices remain high. But as long as the price of a rhino horn hugely exceeds the costs of poaching, a regulated market for rhino horns will not reduce the incentive to poach. Moreover, unless legal supply chains are very well policed, they will open an avenue for poached horns to be passed off as legal supply, increasing the profitability of poaching.

What can be done, then, to save rhinos from extinction? Collins, Fraser and Snowball suggest a multipronged approach. They propose that "pharmaceutical grade" rhino horn be marketed in powdered form as a preferred alternative to poached horn. Such horn must be supplied exclusively through official channels to prevent stockpiling by speculators, who hope to gain not only from an artificially induced shortage of horn, but from the extinction of rhinos altogether.

The value of poached horns, they suggest, could also be undermined relative to legal "pharmaceutical grade" horn by using indelible dyes and embedding tracking devices in horns, as well as DNA verification of legal supply. They suggest that selling fake horn in the illegal market might drive buyers seeking the real thing to the legal alternative.

Simultaneously, protection of existing rhino populations must be increased so that numbers can rise to the point at which the regulated market can be supplied with horn on a sustainable basis.

This requires severe antipoaching measures, as well as determined efforts to hamper the shipment of illegal horns. Legalised hunting of rhinos must be subject to far more rigorous controls to prevent single licences being used repeatedly to disguise the shipment of poached horns. Embassy diplomatic bags, which have been a key link in some illegal supply chains, must be routinely subject to keratin-detection tests.

There is no easy, cheap or quick solution. But news that the number of rhinos poached so far this year has already exceeded the record number of last year means action is urgently required.

[PennyinSA]

Here is another categoric report regarding trade being a useless deterrent!

http://www.theguardian.com/environment/ ... CMP=twt_gu

[Toko]

Govt's push to legalise rhino horn trade splits experts

14 NOV 2013 09:36 SIPHO KINGS

Opinion is divided between those who think legalising the horn trade will save the animal and those who think the move will be ineffective.

With the death rate of rhino set to exceed the birth rate in the next few years, local groups are desperately looking for a way to stem poaching.

A cross-section of experts debated the government's push to legalise the trade in rhino horn, which has been banned for the last three decades, at the University of Pretoria.

Julian Sturgeon, executive director of NGO Resource Africa, said his group was working with SANParks to test a rhino farming project. "Unless we make a decisive intervention it is bye bye rhino without a question," he said.

Their farms would each hold 64 adult rhino in rural communities, said Sturgeon. This would create 108 full-time jobs and generate R12-million a year in areas where there is no other employment. "This would be by far the most effective type of farming on the planet and the beauty is it is a win-win scenario," he said.

John Hume, the country’s largest private rhino owner, said a legal trade would save rhino from extinction. He believes the international ban three decades ago, and the local moratorium on trade in 2009, had only pushed people to the black market.

"We need to encourage everyone in the country to breed rhino and the only way to do that is legalise the trade," he said. This would make a living rhino more valuable than a dead one, because a male could yield up to 70kg of horn in its lifetime.

Dawie Roodt, an economist and head of the Efficient Group, said a live rhino can be bought for R300 000, while a horn could be sold in Vietnam for R10-million. "That is a massive incentive. Where else would you get a return like that?" he said.

Nothing else was working so another solution had to be adopted, Roodt added. By gradually supplying the market, South Africa could stimulate local economic growth and create employment. It would then be in peoples' best interests to protect the lives of rhino.

Lack of confidence
Professor Morné du Plessis, chief executive of the World Wide Fund for Nature in South Africa, said: "The current position is completely untenable." But no solution that had been put forward gave him any confidence that legalised trade could be practically pulled off. "The theory is fine. But there are some very fine predictions on very little data."

He said legalising the trade based on patchy current information was a very risky decision. "There is no practical pathway that we can confidently go for. Panic alone is not a big enough excuse to make huge decisions', he said.

Karl Ammann, a journalist who has carried out research on the market countries, said he used to be pro trade but realised this would not work. The international community, especially groups like Interpol, doubted South Africa’s ability to control its game farmers – given how they had often circumvented trade bans to sell horn.

"A big segment of the international community says you do not have things under control. How corrupt will your system be? How will you control it?" he asked.

He said the farming of tigers was a good case study. This had dramatically increased to supply demand in Asia – the appetite is so great that hundreds of lion skeletons from South Africa are smuggled over the Indian Ocean as a supplement. But the price has not gone down. "In this case the incentive for the poacher has not decreased, while you have gone and farmed a species."

In one tiger farm 700 predators were being continually bred. Buyers would then come and select one which would be electrocuted in front of them.

South Africa is planning on asking for a once-off sale of rhino horn when the Convention on the Trade in Endangered Species next meets in 2016.

[Toko]

Julian Sturgeon, executive director of NGO Resource Africa, said his group was working with SANParks to test a rhino farming project. "Unless we make a decisive intervention it is bye bye rhino without a question," he said.

SANParks checking out rhino farming ???

[Duke]

More to what you posted Toko

Govt's push to legalise rhino horn trade splits experts

Opinion is divided between those who think legalising the horn trade will save the animal and those who think the move will be ineffective.
The government is pushing for legalisation of the trade in rhino horn, which has been banned for the last three decades.(Reuters)

With the death rate of rhino set to exceed the birth rate in the next few years, local groups are desperately looking for a way to stem poaching.

A cross-section of experts debated the government's push to legalise the trade in rhino horn, which has been banned for the last three decades, at the University of Pretoria.

Julian Sturgeon, executive director of NGO Resource Africa, said his group was working with SANParks to test a rhino farming project. "Unless we make a decisive intervention it is bye bye rhino without a question," he said.

Their farms would each hold 64 adult rhino in rural communities, said Sturgeon. This would create 108 full-time jobs and generate R12-million a year in areas where there is no other employment. "This would be by far the most effective type of farming on the planet and the beauty is it is a win-win scenario," he said.

John Hume, the country’s largest private rhino owner, said a legal trade would save rhino from extinction. He believes the international ban three decades ago, and the local moratorium on trade in 2009, had only pushed people to the black market.

"We need to encourage everyone in the country to breed rhino and the only way to do that is legalise the trade," he said. This would make a living rhino more valuable than a dead one, because a male could yield up to 70kg of horn in its lifetime.

Dawie Roodt, an economist and head of the Efficient Group, said a live rhino can be bought for R300 000, while a horn could be sold in Vietnam for R10-million. "That is a massive incentive. Where else would you get a return like that?" he said.

Nothing else was working so another solution had to be adopted, Roodt added. By gradually supplying the market, South Africa could stimulate local economic growth and create employment. It would then be in peoples' best interests to protect the lives of rhino.

Lack of confidence
Professor Morné du Plessis, chief executive of the World Wide Fund for Nature in South Africa, said: "The current position is completely untenable." But no solution that had been put forward gave him any confidence that legalised trade could be practically pulled off. "The theory is fine. But there are some very fine predictions on very little data."

He said legalising the trade based on patchy current information was a very risky decision. "There is no practical pathway that we can confidently go for. Panic alone is not a big enough excuse to make huge decisions', he said.

Karl Ammann, a journalist who has carried out research on the market countries, said he used to be pro trade but realised this would not work. The international community, especially groups like Interpol, doubted South Africa’s ability to control its game farmers – given how they had often circumvented trade bans to sell horn.

"A big segment of the international community says you do not have things under control. How corrupt will your system be? How will you control it?" he asked.

He said the farming of tigers was a good case study. This had dramatically increased to supply demand in Asia – the appetite is so great that hundreds of lion skeletons from South Africa are smuggled over the Indian Ocean as a supplement. But the price has not gone down. "In this case the incentive for the poacher has not decreased, while you have gone and farmed a species."

In one tiger farm 700 predators were being continually bred. Buyers would then come and select one which would be electrocuted in front of them.

South Africa is planning on asking for a once-off sale of rhino horn when the Convention on the Trade in Endangered Species next meets in 2016.

[Flutterby]

The international community, especially groups like Interpol, doubted South Africa’s ability to control its game farmers – given how they had often circumvented trade bans to sell horn.

This is the biggest problem!! Corruption is rife in SA, even among the top officials, so how on earth is this going to be controlled??

[Richprins]

Nothing else was working so another solution had to be adopted, Roodt added.

I think that's the bottom line?

[Penga Ndlovu]

How do gou mean nothing else helped when they have not even gave it a wholehearted try?

[Sprocky]

2013-11-27 14:06

Johannesburg - A consignment of rhino horn and ivory products with an estimated value of R23m on the black market has been returned to South Africa, the Hawks said on Wednesday.

"In 2011, a consignment of rhino horn was seized in Hong Kong," Colonel Johan Jooste told reporters in Johannesburg.

"It took us more than a year to bring back the items seized."

The National Prosecuting Authority, the departments of environmental affairs and international relations, and the police's forensic laboratory had combined to formulate an application to get the consignment back.

A total of 33 rhino horns, 758 ivory chopsticks and 127 ivory bracelets was returned.

According to the Department of Environmental Affairs the rhino horns weigh 79,9kg and have a black market value of around R23,8m.

Forensic evaluation

A forensic evaluation of the rhino horns done by a South African forensic specialist and released by the Department states that:

"The the victims of the illegal exportation of the horns were not only large adult rhinos, but also very young juvenile or sub-adult rhinos. It has further been determined that some of these horns were harvested from rhino that had previously been dehorned. The investigation had further revealed that all the horns were cut at the growth point, suggesting that the horns were obtained from rhino that had been killed.

The ivory bracelets and chop sticks that were part of the consignment all had similar dimensions indicating that these items were manufactured in the same facility. This fact further suggests that these items were mass produced, most probably utilising sophisticated machinery. The large number of ivory items is evidence that multiple elephants were killed to produce enough ivory to manufacture all these items."

MOU with China

Environmental affairs department deputy director general Fundisile Mketeni said the return of the seized items was a result of ongoing engagements with the Asian bloc.

"When we heard about the consignment last year we visited Hong Kong... we are doing our part as environmental affairs."

He said South Africa had an existing memorandum of understanding with China and was now negotiating with Hong Kong.

This was because Hong Kong was the main entry point for goods leaving South African shores.

The department said the number of rhino poached in the country this year was 891 compared to 668 last year, and 448 in 2011.

Since January 2013, 548 rhino had been poached in the Kruger National Park, 89 in Limpopo, 82 in the North west, 79 in KwaZulu-Natal, and 77 in Mpumalanga.

The total number of people arrested for rhino poaching reached 310 this week, the department said.

- SAPA