Freakonomics Blog » Saving the Rhinos: an Addendum

Freakonomics Blog » Saving the Rhinos: an Addendum:

Another more subtle alternative has been proposed by the Harvard economist Michael Kremer. This approach to rhino conservation incorporates elements of both of the schemes you describe in your question.

Why do poachers kill rhinos? Because they get well-paid by middlemen. And why are middlemen able to offer handsome rewards to poachers? Because rhino horns sell for huge sums in the Far East, owing to the scarcity of available horns. So it is high prices that ultimately drive poaching activity.

Now, suppose the government were to announce the strict enforcement of anti-poaching laws and higher penalties rhino killers. Rhino middlemen would quickly realize that supply will grow even scarcer – and hence prices even higher – in the near future. So they’ll buy up as many rhino horns as they can in anticipation of this future of low supply and high prices. But this rush to poach before laws go into effect could itself drive rhinos into extinction.

Professor Kremer’s proposed solution is that the government put together its own stockpile of rhino horns, either from seized contraband or from, as you suggest, controlled harvesting.

As it happens, I was down in Southern California last week and spent time at the San Diego Wild Animal Park in Escondido, and one of the topics that came up was the upcoming extinction of one of the populations of black rhinos. Another was some of the success the park has had in working with the Masai on protecting lions.

One of the assumptions made by Kremer is that there’s enough of a stable government that it’s not only willing to take on these issues, but they’re capable of it. In areas where this is true — South Africa, for instance — it has happened, and there’s been some progress protecting lions and elephants and the reserve lands.

But in other places where governments are unstable (at best) or locked in a civil war, not only might they not see this as a priority, it’s rather hard for them to enforce laws in lands they can’t even visit because the rebels have control over it. That’s been a significant problem both with Rhinos and Gorillas in various areas, especially in Western Africa.

it’s hard for the government to stop poaching when they can’t even send troops or workers into an area without them being shot. The civil instability of the area makes these problems exceptionally difficult to solve — at best.

The second problem with the idea of a legitimate stockpile of horn is that it really doesn’t solve the problem, but it creates a legitimate pool of material that the poached material can infiltrate into. A similar attempt was made to disrupt ivory poaching and trading by filling the market with certified ivory; all that does is leave the poached ivory one forged certificate away from being sold safely. you can look at similar situations in blood diamonds and in the antiquities market (where if you can show that the artifact was expatriated before the restrictions were put in place, it’s okay to keep or sell — and hence there’s a thriving market in falsified histories for poached antiquities). The bottom line is, you don’t solve the problem by replacing an illicit trade with a legal one, you simply give the poachers one more avenue for creating pathways for their product.

The alternative? In places where it’s not safe for anyone (government, NGO, etc) to operate — not much. It’s a tough deal, and seems too late for some populations of rhinos, period.

But one thing that came up at the park I found very interesting. The culture of the Masai is based on the cow. Status and wealth is based on how many cows you own. In Masai culture, when a lion killed a cow, the warriors would hunt the lion in return.

The Wild Animal Park as part of a conservation group worked with the Masai, and agreed to pay market value for any lion-killed cow, if the Masai wouldn’t hunt the lions. What they’ve done is change the dynamics of the relationship (social and financial) and worked with the Masai to become protectors of the lions. According to the people I talked to, it’s been very effective.

This seems to be the trick needed. Poachers are, ultimately, trying to feed their family. The best way to change their idea of how to do this is to change the economic views of the value of the animals; make those animals more valuable alive than dead.

For a number of years, I’ve donated money to an organization called RARE. It’s primary purpose is to help preserve endangered habitat by working with the locals to teach them how to use those habitats in sustainable ways — a key tool is eco-tourism, and they’ve had some good success in South American, and in the last few years have expanded into southern africa. The idea is to teach the locals non-destructive ways to use the resources at hand, to give then incentives to WANT to preserve the resources, not exploit them.

That’s a strategy that seems to work well in some situations. Again, however, it’s not something you can do in the middle of a civil war. In some ways, it’s a carrot vs. stick situation. If you create a context that helps the locals WANT to protect those resources (habitats, species, etc), it’ll happen. Solutions that try to force those changes tend to fail.

Update:

more on this from Salad is Slaughter:

Salad Is Slaughter – A Gluttonous Curmudgeon and “D” List Blogger » More on Rhinos:

I visited the San Diego Wild Animal Park on the 22nd, and during the Asian Photo Caravan Safari they discussed one of the methods used to save (I think it was) the Southern White Rhino. Instead of putting the poachers in prison, they hired the poachers to protect the rhinos. The poachers didn’t hate the rhinos, they just needed the money. Money from the government or from a conservation society is just as good as from the people dealing contraband. Also, the poachers knew the rhinos’ habits better than anyone, and so knew best how to find and protect them.

One problem they discussed about breeding white rhinos in captivity: the discovered that you need two females before one will go in to heat. That’s because the females actually control their reproductive cycle because they want a girlfriend around to help protect the young.

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