This document is the proceedings of a remarkable workshop held in Skukuza, Kruger National Park (... more This document is the proceedings of a remarkable workshop held in Skukuza, Kruger National Park (KNP) from 17-19 September 2013 and jointly organised by SANParks and Resource Africa. The aim of the workshop was to set the stage for the development of rural community rhino farms on the boundary of KNP. Amongst the participants were a number of international experts on international trade and community institutions.The conclusion of the workshop was that a non-lethal trade in white rhino horn offered the highest-valued land use possible from the semi-arid savannas of South Africa with the potential to outcompete all other forms of agricultural and livestock production. However, to achieve this land use requires a legal trade in rhino horn. The workshop examined the feasibility of a “futures trade” in rhino horn conducted on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange.
As the Seventeenth Meeting of the Conference of the Parties to CITES draws closer, there has been... more As the Seventeenth Meeting of the Conference of the Parties to CITES draws closer, there has been a spate of papers from economists and modellers purporting to show that any attempts at resuscitating a legal trade in ivory are too risky to attempt.This paper uses a hybrid model grounded in the biological characteristics and population dynamics of elephants. It begins with an examination of the funding needed to protect elephants. This funding requirement applies as much to a State attempting to protect elephants in a national park as it does to a local community trying to protected elephants in a communal land. It explores the extent to which elephant populations can sustain illegal hunting in the absence of funding and then tests the effects of feeding back a proportion of the return from legal trade in ivory to mitigate the degree of illegal hunting. This legal trade is derived entirely from natural mortality ivory and a low level of problem animal control ivory. It does not include any harvesting of the sort naively put forward by Lusseau & Lee (2016).The results indicate that population declines resulting from illegal hunting levels up to 10% of the population can easily be reversed by the feedback of a proportion of the funds available from a legal trade in ivory. The higher the proportion the shorter is the recovery period. Without this feedback an illegal hunting level of 10% of the population results in a population half-life of 13 years. The response time of an elephant population to any change in its management regime can be very long. The value in this modelling is that it shows the response times for any particular scenario.The algorithm for the feedback mechanism is empirically derived. Its performance needs to be seen as part of the hypothesis to be evaluated under an adaptive management approach. It provides the starting point for action and should be modified as and when it is seen that it does not adequately describe the process.The CITES ban on legal ivory and demand reduction programmes act against the objective of mobilising significant funds to bring about population recovery. The effect is not merely neutral – it will cause the demise of elephant populations.
Regulation of use is an essential component for sustainability in use. Prevailing regulatory stru... more Regulation of use is an essential component for sustainability in use. Prevailing regulatory structures consist largely of a proscriptive and legislative nature imposed by the centre on the periphery, and they have failed to stop negative trends. The profile of the incentive package for regulatory compliance is too often wrong. Incentive is the fulcrum of regulation. Regulation usually requires an element of negative incentive proscriptions backed by powers to enforce them. But any regulatory system which relies primarily on negative incentives is, in the long term, in trouble. Enforcement costs are high and the legitimacy of the system in the eyes of the enforced is called into question. History shows that such systems are unstable and that sustainable systems of regulation are those that rely primarily on positive incentives – economic, cultural and institutional – and which are affordable. Hardin's (1985) comment is relevant here: ‘We must recognize that all control operations incur costs; excessive controls generate their own kind of poverty.
This document examines the successes and failures of the present Convention on International Trad... more This document examines the successes and failures of the present Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna (CITES) and analyses its defects. Major changes are needed in the structure of the Treaty to overcome its perceived shortcomings. A Vision for a new treaty is presented together with a plan for its implementation and transformation to a new Treaty.
The Future of the Universe and the Future of Our Civilization, 2000
THE FUTURE OF BIOLOGICAL DIVERSITY: A LAMENT OR HUNGARIAN RHAPSODY? ROWAN MARTIN PO Box BW475, Bo... more THE FUTURE OF BIOLOGICAL DIVERSITY: A LAMENT OR HUNGARIAN RHAPSODY? ROWAN MARTIN PO Box BW475, Borrowdale, Harare, Zimbabwe E-mail: rowan@ welston. icon. co. zw 1 Introduction We live in a time when the most commonly heard refrain is a lament for ...
Page 1. Effects of Veterinary Fences on in Zimbabwe Wildlife Conservation RUSSELL D. TAYLOR ROWAN... more Page 1. Effects of Veterinary Fences on in Zimbabwe Wildlife Conservation RUSSELL D. TAYLOR ROWAN B. MARTIN Department of National Parks and Wild Life Management PO Box 8365 Causeway Harare, Zimbabwe ABSTRACT ...
The China office of a major conservation organization commissioned this study to examine the poss... more The China office of a major conservation organization commissioned this study to examine the possible demand drivers of the current elephant poaching crisis. It has been widely assumed that consumer demand for worked ivory, particularly in East Asia, has been the primary demand driver of increased elephant poaching. However, the sustained high level of elephant killing over the past decade suggests that the amount of raw ivory produced could greatly exceed the quantity that has been processed and put on sale for consumers. If this is indeed the case, explanation must be sought of why much more ivory is being imported than is needed to meet consumer demand. Suggestions have been made that speculators have been purchasing large quantities of poached ivory to store for future sale at expected great profit. Demand reduction strategies and tactics have been aimed at consumers. If speculators rather than consumers are driving demand and thus poaching, the demand reduction campaigns to date have been misdirected. The findings of this study could influence the formulation of future strategies to reduce demand drivers.
This document is the proceedings of a remarkable workshop held in Skukuza, Kruger National Park (... more This document is the proceedings of a remarkable workshop held in Skukuza, Kruger National Park (KNP) from 17-19 September 2013 and jointly organised by SANParks and Resource Africa. The aim of the workshop was to set the stage for the development of rural community rhino farms on the boundary of KNP. Amongst the participants were a number of international experts on international trade and community institutions.The conclusion of the workshop was that a non-lethal trade in white rhino horn offered the highest-valued land use possible from the semi-arid savannas of South Africa with the potential to outcompete all other forms of agricultural and livestock production. However, to achieve this land use requires a legal trade in rhino horn. The workshop examined the feasibility of a “futures trade” in rhino horn conducted on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange.
As the Seventeenth Meeting of the Conference of the Parties to CITES draws closer, there has been... more As the Seventeenth Meeting of the Conference of the Parties to CITES draws closer, there has been a spate of papers from economists and modellers purporting to show that any attempts at resuscitating a legal trade in ivory are too risky to attempt.This paper uses a hybrid model grounded in the biological characteristics and population dynamics of elephants. It begins with an examination of the funding needed to protect elephants. This funding requirement applies as much to a State attempting to protect elephants in a national park as it does to a local community trying to protected elephants in a communal land. It explores the extent to which elephant populations can sustain illegal hunting in the absence of funding and then tests the effects of feeding back a proportion of the return from legal trade in ivory to mitigate the degree of illegal hunting. This legal trade is derived entirely from natural mortality ivory and a low level of problem animal control ivory. It does not include any harvesting of the sort naively put forward by Lusseau & Lee (2016).The results indicate that population declines resulting from illegal hunting levels up to 10% of the population can easily be reversed by the feedback of a proportion of the funds available from a legal trade in ivory. The higher the proportion the shorter is the recovery period. Without this feedback an illegal hunting level of 10% of the population results in a population half-life of 13 years. The response time of an elephant population to any change in its management regime can be very long. The value in this modelling is that it shows the response times for any particular scenario.The algorithm for the feedback mechanism is empirically derived. Its performance needs to be seen as part of the hypothesis to be evaluated under an adaptive management approach. It provides the starting point for action and should be modified as and when it is seen that it does not adequately describe the process.The CITES ban on legal ivory and demand reduction programmes act against the objective of mobilising significant funds to bring about population recovery. The effect is not merely neutral – it will cause the demise of elephant populations.
Regulation of use is an essential component for sustainability in use. Prevailing regulatory stru... more Regulation of use is an essential component for sustainability in use. Prevailing regulatory structures consist largely of a proscriptive and legislative nature imposed by the centre on the periphery, and they have failed to stop negative trends. The profile of the incentive package for regulatory compliance is too often wrong. Incentive is the fulcrum of regulation. Regulation usually requires an element of negative incentive proscriptions backed by powers to enforce them. But any regulatory system which relies primarily on negative incentives is, in the long term, in trouble. Enforcement costs are high and the legitimacy of the system in the eyes of the enforced is called into question. History shows that such systems are unstable and that sustainable systems of regulation are those that rely primarily on positive incentives – economic, cultural and institutional – and which are affordable. Hardin's (1985) comment is relevant here: ‘We must recognize that all control operations incur costs; excessive controls generate their own kind of poverty.
This document examines the successes and failures of the present Convention on International Trad... more This document examines the successes and failures of the present Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna (CITES) and analyses its defects. Major changes are needed in the structure of the Treaty to overcome its perceived shortcomings. A Vision for a new treaty is presented together with a plan for its implementation and transformation to a new Treaty.
The Future of the Universe and the Future of Our Civilization, 2000
THE FUTURE OF BIOLOGICAL DIVERSITY: A LAMENT OR HUNGARIAN RHAPSODY? ROWAN MARTIN PO Box BW475, Bo... more THE FUTURE OF BIOLOGICAL DIVERSITY: A LAMENT OR HUNGARIAN RHAPSODY? ROWAN MARTIN PO Box BW475, Borrowdale, Harare, Zimbabwe E-mail: rowan@ welston. icon. co. zw 1 Introduction We live in a time when the most commonly heard refrain is a lament for ...
Page 1. Effects of Veterinary Fences on in Zimbabwe Wildlife Conservation RUSSELL D. TAYLOR ROWAN... more Page 1. Effects of Veterinary Fences on in Zimbabwe Wildlife Conservation RUSSELL D. TAYLOR ROWAN B. MARTIN Department of National Parks and Wild Life Management PO Box 8365 Causeway Harare, Zimbabwe ABSTRACT ...
The China office of a major conservation organization commissioned this study to examine the poss... more The China office of a major conservation organization commissioned this study to examine the possible demand drivers of the current elephant poaching crisis. It has been widely assumed that consumer demand for worked ivory, particularly in East Asia, has been the primary demand driver of increased elephant poaching. However, the sustained high level of elephant killing over the past decade suggests that the amount of raw ivory produced could greatly exceed the quantity that has been processed and put on sale for consumers. If this is indeed the case, explanation must be sought of why much more ivory is being imported than is needed to meet consumer demand. Suggestions have been made that speculators have been purchasing large quantities of poached ivory to store for future sale at expected great profit. Demand reduction strategies and tactics have been aimed at consumers. If speculators rather than consumers are driving demand and thus poaching, the demand reduction campaigns to date have been misdirected. The findings of this study could influence the formulation of future strategies to reduce demand drivers.
This wildlife trade and tourism IFF study is the first of its kind and the methodologies involved... more This wildlife trade and tourism IFF study is the first of its kind and the methodologies involved a combination of population modelling, estimated product offtakes and open source trade data. The trade research is limited to eight species groups – elephants, rhinos, lions, pangolins, crocodiles, abalone, sharks and rays, and cycads. The study concluded that for the period 2006-2014, Southern Africa lost almost US$ 1.5 billion in illicit transfers of funds or products overseas, or close to 50% of all wildlife commodity exports. Surprisingly, illegal exports of abalone meat made up almost half of this amount.
The IFFs in the wildlife tourism sector were much larger, estimated at over US$ 22 billion in the ten years 2006-2015, and deriving mainly from tax evasion and trade misinvoicing, sometimes involving offshore shell companies. We predicted that more than US$3 billion could have been lost in 2016 in the eight countries covered in this study.
This study on Illicit Financial Flows (IFFs) in the Wildlife and Tourism sectors in Southern Africa emanated from the TrustAfrica (TA) and the Open Society Initiative for Southern Africa (OSISA) project “Assessing the extent and impact of illicit financial flows in key economic sectors in Southern Africa”. The three components of the project are mining, agriculture and wildlife.
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The IFFs in the wildlife tourism sector were much larger, estimated at over US$ 22 billion in the ten years 2006-2015, and deriving mainly from tax evasion and trade misinvoicing, sometimes involving offshore shell companies. We predicted that more than US$3 billion could have been lost in 2016 in the eight countries covered in this study.
This study on Illicit Financial Flows (IFFs) in the Wildlife and Tourism sectors in Southern Africa emanated from the TrustAfrica (TA) and the Open Society Initiative for Southern Africa (OSISA) project “Assessing the extent and impact of illicit financial flows in key economic sectors in Southern Africa”. The three components of the project are mining, agriculture and wildlife.