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China announces ban on ivory trade by end of 2017

bbc.com

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Re: China announces ban on ivory trade by end of 2017

#41

Post by adamnemecek »

fuayenaha wrote: post #8
gigatexal wrote: post #4

Woot! Thank you China! Elephants are my favorite animal and it's sad to see such magestic creatures slaughtered for such nominal things. Or any animal for that matter. Shark fin soup? Seriously what a waste of a needed predator.

What is there to like about elephants? Honest question. To me they look like gigantic rocks who shit a lot. But of course that could be said of many animals. ;P

They are extremely intelligent creatures which some insane skills. E.g. they have a "built in GPS", it's been documented one elephant was able to communicate the location of a place thousands of miles away and the other elephant was able to locate this place based on this information

https://www.thedodo.com/elephants-travel-humans-help-1353631...

Furthermore, they have been documented to be able to distinguish between different human languages. I.e. if they had a bad experience with someone speaking language X, next time they see someone speaking language X, they will behave differently compared with someone who speaks language Y. http://www.livescience.com/44030-elephants-identify-human-vo... This is just pure insanity to me.

Wikipedia actually has an article dedicated to this

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elephant_cognition

Idk if this will make you change your opinion but I've always found this video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4iyxUK_e5nU to provide a good idea of their intelligence.

Re: China announces ban on ivory trade by end of 2017

#42

Post by tn13 »

fma wrote: post #13

What will happen to the people who hunt/trade ivory. Specifically, those who live in villages and depend on it as a source of income. Will there be assistance to wean them off elephant hunting. I hope they get new skills and do not poach other animals.

Not sure why you are being downvoted. I think people on HN perceive hunting or ivory trading as something bad such as human trafficking. It isn't. My great-grandfather was an Ivory trader and traded ivory and employed artists who would make amazing carvings out of Ivory he purchased from Kerala and Africa. With increasing government regulation and heavy handed attitude of regulators the entire industry got pushed underground. My grandfather shut the business and the artists went into underground economy being exploited and working in more horrible conditions.

As far as Ivory trade in Kenya is considered the people who take money from the western world to conserve are often the leaders of the cartels who smuggle ivory. The result of the ban would be further exploitation of the poachers and hunters and yes they are going to poach elephants at faster rate.

Re: China announces ban on ivory trade by end of 2017

#43

Post by tn13 »

fma wrote: post #27
mullingitover wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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-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…

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.

Re: China announces ban on ivory trade by end of 2017

#44

Post by adamnemecek »

tn13 wrote: post #43
fma wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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-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…

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 t…

> Totally agree. War on Drugs is a failure and Ivory trade ban would be another failure.

They are more dissimilar than similar. Not all illegal goods have the same economics as illegal substances. Kinder Surprise eggs are illegal in the US, yet there isn't much of a market for them.

> Government wants to ban something which people want and some people willing to supply.

The situation is really different. When people go buy ivory, they are buying it to show off their wealth. Similarly, few rich people would buy a Faberge egg from a shady guy on the street, esp. if being seen with it in public (you know, the reason why you might be buying it in the first place) might raise question about the product's origin.

People want luxury goods, not necessarily ivory in particular. If you ban Ferraris, people will buy Lamborghinis. If you ban sports cars, they might buy yachts.

> China could have imported 1000 elephants and could farmed them for their ivory.

Do you know much about elephant husbandry? Disregarding ethical issues, it's not possible for financial and ecological reasons.

Re: China announces ban on ivory trade by end of 2017

#45

Post by mullingitover »

fma wrote: post #27
mullingitover wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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-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…

> 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.

This is entirely speculative. How do you know that the poachers don't have perfectly reasonable means of providing for their families, and are simply poaching because they make more money that way?

Re: China announces ban on ivory trade by end of 2017

#46

Post by refurb »

adamnemecek wrote: post #25
hashkb wrote: post #9

OK... how about rhino horn? Compared to rhinos, elephants are in zero danger. Not defending poachers, but this is the wrong thing to prioritize. (Also cheetahs, and probably a lot of other species)

> Compared to rhinos, elephants are in zero danger. Elephants are definitely NOT in zero danger. Certain species of Rhino are definitely virtually extinct (for example, there are only three known remaining specimen of the Northern white rhino https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northern_white_rhinoceros ) but elephants are in a pretty bad shape too. If the next 10 years are as bad as the last 10, they will be virtually ext…

How do you define elephants "in the wild"? Some African countries cull their elephant herds due to overpopulation. These tend to be on reserves, but we're talking massive chunks of land that would be considered "wild".

Re: China announces ban on ivory trade by end of 2017

#47

Post by adamnemecek »

> I think people on HN perceive hunting or ivory trading as something bad such as human trafficking. It isn't.

They both involve exploitation and suffering of intelligent and sentient being for selfish reasons.

> My great-grandfather was an Ivory trader

Your grandfather was a scum and no amount of mental gymnastics will change that.

> With increasing government regulation and heavy handed attitude of regulators the entire industry got pushed underground.

Illegal markets tend to be a lot smaller than legal markets (in terms of amount of goods purchased at least).

> As far as Ivory trade in Kenya is considered the people who take money from the western world to conserve are often the leaders of the cartels who smuggle ivory.

Welcome to corrupt governments? Does the fact that laws cannot be enforced 100% mean that we don't need them?

> The result of the ban would be further exploitation of the poachers and hunters

You should start a charity to support these poor souls /s.

> and yes they are going to poach elephants at faster rate.

Can you explain to me why the poaching crisis wasn't this bad until 2008 when CITES lifted restriction on ivory sales?

This whole discussion reminds me of this Onion video

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RKccr8g1xCU

Re: China announces ban on ivory trade by end of 2017

#48

Post by tehwebguy »

Cyph0n wrote: post #7
gigatexal wrote: post #4

Woot! Thank you China! Elephants are my favorite animal and it's sad to see such magestic creatures slaughtered for such nominal things. Or any animal for that matter. Shark fin soup? Seriously what a waste of a needed predator.

I once saw shark fin soup on a high-end restaurant's menu in Dubai, sometime in 2013. I asked a waitress and she said they weren't serving it any more. The menu hadn't been updated, so the change must have been recent. I was pretty disgusted by the whole thing to be frank.

The Sheraton Grand Taipei served shark fin soup until early this year despite a ban from Sheraton corporate dating back to 2014.

Re: China announces ban on ivory trade by end of 2017

#49

Post by pselbert »

Waterluvian wrote: post #17
ChicagoBoy11 wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

... and apparently one of the most effective strategies was using Yao Ming and Jackie Chan as spokespeople against shark fin consumption!

I remember the day Mr. T convinced me not to do drugs.

Public awareness campaigns were key in stopping the ivory trade within the United States (before it was ramped up again by the Chinese). Demand is the real problem, and creating the image that ivory (or shark fin soup) isn't cool is extremely effective.

Re: China announces ban on ivory trade by end of 2017

#50

Post by adamnemecek »

refurb wrote: post #46
adamnemecek wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Compared to rhinos, elephants are in zero danger. Elephants are definitely NOT in zero danger. Certain species of Rhino are definitely virtually extinct (for example, there are only three known remaining specimen of the Northern white rhino https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northern_white_rhinoceros ) but elephants are in a pretty bad shape too. If the next 10 years are as bad as the last 10, they will be virtually ext…

How do you define elephants "in the wild"? Some African countries cull their elephant herds due to overpopulation. These tend to be on reserves, but we're talking massive chunks of land that would be considered "wild".

You can interpret "in the wild" is as places where the rangers might not be aware of all the specimen living in the reserve.

Even though some of these are technically reserves, some of them are pretty large

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tsavo_East_National_Park is 13,747 km2/5,308 sq mi.

The park rangers have only a rough idea of how many elephants live in the reserve.

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