For years, many rhino farmers have been dehorning their animals as an anti-poaching safeguard, but instead of destroying the legally worthless horn they’ve been storing it in bank vaults in anticipation of the day they’ll be able to sell it, leaving some of them sat on stockpiles which could be worth hundreds of millions of dollars if allowed onto the market. The pro-trade lobby’s arguments are simple enough, albeit freighted with a horrible sense of déjà vu: efforts to curb poaching are failing due to huge demand from Asia, so the best way to preserve rhinos is to flood the market with the huge stockpiles of horn via a well-controlled legal trade, thereby satiating demand it and undermining the black market. There just one major problem with this scenario – it’s fundamentally flawed and won’t work, as history makes abundantly clear.
Posted on: Sat, 08 Jun 2013 08:03:37 +0000
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