BUSINESS MAVERICK: OP-ED: A solution to the ivory trade conundrum: Buy it and burn it

About every three years, the “white gold” known as ivory becomes a red-hot conservation and animal-welfare issue. It is always bubbling, given well-founded concerns about elephant poaching. But it really hits the radar screens when the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species , which is effectively a UN treaty, holds its Conference of the Parties .

Debates around ivory are always emotional, not least because elephants are large, social and intelligent animals, so they pull the heartstrings of modernat least those of us who don’t have to live in close and dangerous proximity to them. Policies need to rise above emotion and be implemented in a way that benefits both people, especially the rural poor who bear the brunt of human-wildlife conflict, and wildlife.

But the sunlight would soon be deflected by the advancing sylvan tide. Even as Selous was putting pen to paper in the early 20th century, Chobe’s elephant numbers were fast dwindling. By the 1930s, there was only one breeding herd left. In the 1960s and 1970s, tourists found an environment thick with a tangled mass of vegetation and cover that Selous and other 19th-century ivory hunters in the vicinity would not have recognised.

Like campaigns to shame consumers from wearing fur, anti-ivory campaigners want to drive home the point that your carving or bracelet was pried from the carcass of a poached elephant. The aim is to make ivory unacceptable as an item of consumption. Any sales of legal stockpiles will send the opposite message while presenting opportunities for laundering.

In countries with reputations for graft and poor governance , it is plausible that not everything gets put to the torch, with the burning used as a smokescreen to secretly sell some of the stockpile. On the opposite spectrum of IFAW, organisations such as the pro-hunting group Safari Club International have noted that forensic evidence required in criminal cases may go up in smoke at ivory burns, allowing poachers who would otherwise face prosecution to strike another day.

Nigeria Nigeria Latest News, Nigeria Nigeria Headlines

Similar News:You can also read news stories similar to this one that we have collected from other news sources.

BUSINESS MAVERICK OP-ED: Call for government to open procurement data to public scrutinyPublic contracting is the meeting point of significant power and money and in most countries, these systems are characterised by convoluted, opaque planning. According to a recent report by the Open Contracting Partnership, up to 20% of state procurement budgets for infrastructure may be wasted. Opening procurement data will help support public participation and foster accountable governance.
Source: dailymaverick - 🏆 3. / 84 Read more »

BUSINESS MAVERICK INVESTIGATION: Visual surveillance and weak cyber security, Part One: When cameras get dangerousIn 2019, 15,000 surveillance cameras will be connected to the Internet to monitor Joburg’s streets 24/7. This is courtesy of video surveillance service provider Vumacam. But online cameras can be hacked – often quite easily. This is not only a threat to public safety, but can also place Internet services at risk. And the manufacturer of Vumacam’s cameras, Hikvison, has a checkered cybersecurity history. Daily Maverick investigated and found that Hikvision’s known cyber vulnerabilities may be just the tip of the iceberg.
Source: dailymaverick - 🏆 3. / 84 Read more »

Business Maverick: June 13: Five Things You Need to Know to Start Your DayHong Kong’s Carrie Lam urges a return to order after protests but refused to pull bill. Asia equity futures are pointing lower after U.S tech stocks led a stock slump. And India plans to launch a lunar mission by July 15. Here are some of the things people in markets are talking about today.
Source: dailymaverick - 🏆 3. / 84 Read more »

Business Maverick: Zuckerberg Knew of ‘Problematic’ Privacy Practices, WSJ SaysFacebook Inc. uncovered emails that seem to show Chief Executive Officer Mark Zuckerberg was aware of potentially problematic privacy practices at the company, the Wall Street Journal reported, citing people familiar with the matter.
Source: dailymaverick - 🏆 3. / 84 Read more »

Business Maverick: J&J, Colgate Ordered to Pay Almost $10 Million in Talc CaseJohnson & Johnson and Colgate-Palmolive Co. must pay almost $10 million to a dying California woman who blamed the companies’ talc-based products for her rare cancer.
Source: dailymaverick - 🏆 3. / 84 Read more »