Banning the Ivory Trade

0:00Good evening. In a dramatic symbolic gesture, the president of Kenya today set fire to a stack of elephant tusks, and he watched as three million dollars worth of ivory went up in smoke. The tusks had been confiscated from game poachers. They're the frontmen of an illegal trade in ivory that's destroying the very symbol of Africa, the elephant. The poachers have been slaughtering Africa's great herds of elephants at a shocking rate. In the last decade, their numbers have been reduced by more than half. The poaching is now so bad, many experts are talking about the danger of extinction. But the ivory burning in Kenya today signaled a new determination to stop the slaughter. The Nairobi government has closed down its own ivory market, and it is urging the world to do the same.

0:47The War on Elephants More than 300 a day killed by poachers looking for white gold, ivory tusks. These elephants had their heads hacked off with chainsaws. All that's left are vulture droppings on their backs and the stench of death. What is happening to the elephant now is no less than a holocaust. The numbers are sickening. Three quarters of a million elephants killed in the last eight years. That's half the total number. In Uganda, there are almost no elephants left. Kenya's herd has been cut by 85 percent.

1:32In a continent so poor, the lure of ivory is powerful. It's a half a billion dollar a year industry. Ivory sells for $200 a kilo. All African states agree they want to stop the poaching, but they disagree vehemently on how to do that. Today in Kenya, President Erop Moï symbolically torched 12 tons of ivory worth more than 3 million dollars. Kenya is calling for a global ban of the ivory trade, saying poaching will stop only when countries like Canada and the U.S. stop buying ivory. Let us destroy our stocks once and for all, and on the strength of that gesture, appeal to the world to eliminate the ivory trade once and for all. This plan for a total ban on ivory is supported by the US, Canada, Europe and some African countries, but not all.

2:22We feel highly frustrated when people try and dictate to us who are not informed, who do not have the background, and who may not even be concerned about ecosystems at all. South Africa, along with Botswana and Zimbabwe, favor the controlled harvesting of ivory rather than a ban. They say ivory can be treated as a renewable resource through careful management, and that the numbers of elephants in their countries have actually grown because of conservation. These countries say a ban on ivory aimed at protecting the elephant will only drive the poachers underground. This debate on whether or not to totally ban ivory comes to a vote in October at the International Conference on Trade in Endangered Species. Still, the killing goes on.

3:09The point here is to end up with more elephants. The Canadian government thinks it knows how to help by supporting a total worldwide ban on ivory. We have a ban here now. If you try to bring ivory back to Canada, you will lose it at the airport. Does this make sense? In Toronto, Patrick Boyer, a conservative MP and an authority on the way we should deal with endangered species, he thinks we're on the right track. In Vancouver, Walter Block, who writes on the environment for the Fraser Institute. He thinks the ban won't help and will probably hurt. Patrick Boyer, the ivory burned today in Kenya, 12 tons of tusks, 2,500 of them. Did it make sense? Yes, it did because it sent a very symbolic message around the globe to people that think that this issue is not one where the stakes are high.

3:57The stakes are very significant here in what we're talking about economically, but also for the survival of a species. Well, 2,500 tusks is a lot of symbolism. Walter Block, would you have burned that pile? No, I think it's a waste. Whenever you burn a valuable product, it's just a waste. And I don't think that the ban will help either. I think that, first of all, the ban will probably be evaded. And even if it's not evaded, if it's successful, that means that the price of ivory will be driven up. and with a higher price of ivory, people will have an attempt or will be likely to evade it even more, which is why bans usually don't work. But Mr. Block, if there are no legal markets for ivory, none, surely at some point the price has to start coming down, nobody is allowed to buy it?

4:43Oh no, on the contrary. To the extent that you're successful and that would mean that the price would just rise very, very high, because there'll always be a black market. But I think that in looking at this we're really balking up the wrong tree, pardon the pun here. I think there's a much more viable economically sensible way of preserving the elephants and rhinos and other extinct species. Okay, well let's get to that in a minute. I want to talk about the ban first. You say it doesn't make sense. Patrick Boyer? Yes, I think it does. Canadian policy is very clear since Joel Clark announced it in the middle of last month. And we are effectively taking ourselves out of the ivory market, and we'll be working for the greatest level of legal protection for the African elephant.

5:30But I want to... And Walter Block is saying that you can't ban a black market. No. Well, I want to pick up, there's two elements to that. First, it's also very clear that the Canadian position is not premised on the simplistic assumption that all by changing the legal protection afforded to the African elephant is a solution to this problem. It is not. Mr. Block, the ban doesn't work, what does? Well, we have a book coming out from the Fraser Institute called Economics and the Environment, Reconciliation

6:43What do you mean? If we don't have enough elephants to support any sales at all, then that seems to be supported by the numbers, how does the marketplace help? Well, the way the marketplace would help is if we privatize these animals. And in order to make this point very clear, let me make an analogy between the cow and the buffalo. Now, as far as I'm concerned, the cow and the buffalo are very similar kinds of animals. Why is it then that the buffalo was virtually extinct, whereas the cow never came within a million miles of being extinct? And I think the reason is that the cow is always owned privately, whereas the buffalo was owned in common the way the elephant and the rhino now are. Let me see if I can figure this out. You're saying that if elephants are sold to individuals and owned by individuals, somehow that will increase the supply of elephants.

7:34Yes, if elephants are owned in roughly the way that cows now are, and I understand that there's a rhino farm opening up in Texas somewhere, if this occurs, then instead of the tusk being sort of like a curse for the elephant because everyone wants to get the elephant, the tusk will be a means of safeguarding the elephant because the private owners of the elephant, no more than they'd go into the lower 40 with a machine gun and starting to shoot their cows, wouldn't do that with their elephants and wouldn't allow anyone else to do it. to it. So what I'm saying is that the institution of the free market system and privatization is the last best help for the elephant. All right, Mr. Boyer. I think there may be some limited uses to the concept that is being proposed here, but to suggest that it's possible to privatize all the remaining elephant herds in Africa does not take into account a number of realities, including the grazing and range areas that

8:30The Theory of Money and Credit

9:00Mr. Block, when you come right down to it, these are large animals, they move around a lot, and that makes them very vulnerable to poachers. They're tough to protect. When it comes right down to it, a poacher looking through the sights of a machine gun trained on an elephant's side doesn't care whether the elephant is owned by Kenya or owned by the fellow down the road. Well, let me throw this now to Ms. Patrick Boyer. I don't accept that comparison and I reject that analysis.

9:46We're not talking here about farming. We're talking about wild animals and their natural habitat. We're talking about a market that's been driving the poaching. Fair in mind that of the millions and millions and millions of dollars involved in this, only about 8 to 15 percent of that money ever gets even back into Africa. We're talking about middlemen that are operating internationally, we're talking about the markets, and this can change. I think effectively what we're now witnessing, both in Canada, the United States and Western Europe, is a distinct change in consumer attitudes that is effectively going to see us take ourselves out of the ivory market and that certainly goes to the point that is being talked about here on the other side in this discussion relating to market forces.

10:36Alright, Walter Block in Vancouver, Patrick Boyer in Toronto, thank you both very much, good night. My pleasure. Good night.