To burn or not to burn: that is only half the question

[This article is a response an article by Botswana's Minister of Wildlife and Environment, Tshekedi Khama, published in the Evening Standard, Monday 25 April 2016]

While I do think that Botswana's decision not to burn their ivory stockpiles is an excellent one, and while I do applaud their decision to boycott the ivory burning at the conclusion of the upcoming Giants Club summit, I would question the strategy behind erecting and displaying a statue built from this material and I would suggest that there might be a much more effective use for Botswana and other African nations' stockpiles.

On the one hand, I can appreciate the idea behind the statue – in the Honourable Minister's own words, “there is value in conserving elephants for eco-tourism and emphasising the value of a live elephant should be upheld at all costs.” It is true, I think, that the future of Botswana's elephants is dependent on not only the perception of value, but the actual value of these animals to Botswana's communities. This means that elephants must generate revenues for the communities in the way that they did while trophy hunters were still allowed to operate in Botswana, when communities generated large incomes each year by selling their trophy allocations. Eco-tourism, it is true, has a role to play, but does a statue made of ivory displayed in an airport actually contribute any real value or is it just, if you'll pardon the excruciating pun, a white elephant?

The truth of the matter, economically speaking, is that burning and stockpiling (or building statues) have the same economic effect: supply is restricted in relation to existing demand. There is, and likely always will be such a demand – there is no denying this fact. As a result, the price of the commodity is driven ever higher, the luxury status of ivory is maintained or even enhanced. This means that the price per kilogram increases, and impoverished people from adjacent countries (and increasingly from within Botswana itself) are further incentivised to risk their lives in order to obtain quantities of this valuable commodity at any cost.

Botswana has taken a tough stance on poaching, and much like the anti-poaching operations being conducted in South Africa in defense of rhino populations, there have been results in terms of arrests, confiscations, and also in terms of poachers killed. The Botswana Defence Force and the Department of Wildlife and National Parks have a well-deserved reputation as some of the worlds finest and most effective anti-poaching forces, and yet even this is not enough to deter the ever-increasing waves of young men willing to risk death for a few kilos of white gold. The sad truth of the matter is that as long as the existing supply/demand equation is maintained, there will always be fresh volunteers eager to take up the rifle and try their luck in the cat-and-mouse game that plays out every day in Southern Africa's National Parks and border regions.

But is there an alternative? I think there might be, because in economic terms a stockpile is an immensely powerful thing. A stockpile represents a potential economic force – a force that might be used to alter existing market dynamics if it is exerted in the correct way. One example of the manner in which such a stockpile might be used is supplied by arch-imperialist and mining magnate, Cecil John Rhodes. During his time at the helm of De Beers, he was often frustrated by the periodic collapse of the price of diamonds due to oversupply, which would have dire effects on his business. His solution to the problem of oversupply was to stockpile and carefully regulate the release of precious stones onto the European market, thereby avoiding gluts and maintaining a steady and predictable diamond price, year in and year out. A stockpile retained and regulated in this way can be used to maintain an artificially high commodity value, and this, I would argue, is the unintended consequence ivory of stockpiling and burning across the African continent.

Another potential use of such a stockpile involves precisely the opposite strategy. A stockpile might be suddenly released in order to flood the market deliberately, which has the effect of creating a crash in commodity value. Demand, for a time, is overwhelmed by supply, and the market collapses as a result.

What if Botswana unbanned the sale of ivory? What if government itself either released a massive amount of stockpiled ivory (an elephant-statue's worth, say) to crash the market in one fell swoop or, even better, set about regulating the market through a gradual controlled release of these stockpiles, thereby eliminating black-market/poaching/smuggling networks, bringing the market above-board, generating taxable revenue and creating value-added industries while disinsetivising poachers/poaching activity? Fewer animals would be shot illegally, particularly if this strategy was coupled with Botswana's already tough stance on illegal poaching activity.

In a country with as many elephant as Botswana, we could maintain a steady stream of sustainably harvested ivory – i.e. ivory obtained from naturally occurring elephant carcasses (predation, disease, old age), of which there are many, as well as from existing stockpiles. A well-regulated and well-managed market and supply could contribute massively to the conservation of these animals, and, crucially, could help to generate real revenues for communities. The war on black-market ivory is like the war on drugs: it is unwinnable for the simple reason that there is a significant demand and there is an (illegally obtainable) supply. As in countries where approaches have changed to regulation, education, decriminalization (and taxation) of narcotics, perhaps Botswana should consider a similar approach for ivory?