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Readers of this review may wish to consider the whole question of conservation anew. The proponents of conservation who achieve the greates publicity often align themselves with governments and non-governmental organizations in formulating policies which are predominantly of an anti-market nature. The repeated rationale given is not that they are neccessarily anti-market as such but they have objections on moral grounds to the whole concept of 'wild' animals being owned, reared, and harvested by people and companies. While this may be a laudable stance the result is often a conservation failure as animals are needlessly slaughtered by those who do not share their principles but who see an opportunity to better themselves substantially because laws and treaties have made that scenario come true.
In this book the author sets out this horrible tale of events whereby the rhinocerous populations of Africa in particular are on the verge of extinction. Unlike the case of the African elephant which still exists in some considerable numbers, the rhinos are left in thousands. The reasons for the attractiveness of the rhino horn are set out along with the history of trade throughout the years while the myth of rhino horn is dispelled with the mundane demand for horn for dagger handles in places like Yemen or as a component of medicine in China.
The author is very clear about the impact that intergovernmental organisations have on the market for rhino horn which raises the price on world markets and which causes poachers to kill these magnificent beasts to defy a shoot to kill policy in some countries. By restricting trade in this way these treaties place untold wealth before the poor in mainly African countries where percapita incomes are very low and which allow middle-men and professional smugglers to earn very high rates of return indeed. Such is the prospects of this wealth that the poachers have no qualms about destrying many of the animals in a short-sighted policy of personal enrichment. As 't Sas Rolfes shows the enforcement costs of these laws are so high that they are uinsustainable over the longer term and so the slaughter goes on.
He sets out an alternative prescription which involves establishing property rights over the native animals so that the restraints on the trade are removed and that the people who live with the animals on a daily basis will benefit. This clearly becomes a moral argument but those conservationists shout see that ultimately the rhinos will benefit from a secure future. Farmers in every country try to husband their resouces and take a longer term view which would be no different in the case of rhinos. The get rich quick incentives for poachers would disappear and enforcement costs would be both localised and diversified and would be incorporated into price. There are many forms of commercialisation which do not involve killing.
The moral dilemma comes down to this: while owning the beasts may be morally repugnant, is it not more repugnant to try and fail to prevent the wholescale slaughter which continues to this day because of the peverse incentives established by treaties intending to prevent it?
I know which I prefer.
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