[Jacob-list] AZA new direction

[Thomas Simmons]

Edd - 

Thanks for a very important post!
In my economics classes, we spend a great deal of time on what is called the "Coase Theorem," which holds that if you want to protect species, the most effective way to do it is to privatize it (allow private ownership).  The African elephant is the classic example.

As both the world wide ivory trade and urbanization in Africa increased, African nations worried about the contiued existance of the elephant.  In Kenya and east africa, the response was to create sanctuaries, outlaw private ownership of elephants, and outlaw hunting them and the ivory trade. Tthe resulting increase in value caused poaching to increase, and the east african elephant population was halved.

In Zambia and Zimbabwe, by contrast, the governments declared that elephants on tribal lanmds were now owned by the tribes on whos lands they lived.  Asa result, the tribes bred, managed, and culled as necessary, and - even with a continued ivory trade - the elephant population doubled.  These nations are now exporting their elephants to re-populate the east african herds!

Efforts to outlaw ownership are usually misguided and touchy-feely, and not based in reality or actual experience.

thom
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://www.pairlist.net/pipermail/jacob-list/attachments/20010518/ab7ec616/attachment.html