Ivory is a hard creamy-white substance, typically used to make jewelry and other ornaments, that composes elephant tusks. Due to the high price of ivory killing elephants for their tusks has become quite a lucrative business which has resulted in the African elephant being brought to the brink of extinction. The prohibitionists dominate the ivory trade debate, however is a ban on ivory trade really all that beneficial. I argue that an ivory trade ban is in fact counterintuitive and brings with it more detriments than benefits and a legal ivory trade is a far better solution to the elephant poaching crisis.
Allow me to begin by clearing up some common misconceptions about legal ivory trade. Legalizing ivory trade does not mean letting poachers …show more content…
The main reason ivory is popular is because it is expensive; its only purpose in today’s world is to display wealth, but it wasn’t always as expensive as it is today. In 2002 ivory cost only $150 per kilogram; a price dwarfed by the ridiculously exorbitant $900 per pound vendors were asking for in 2012. The main causes for this massive spike in price was due to ivory trade bans. Illegal goods are a great deal more expensive than their legal counterparts; that is a fact. If ivory was legalized, ivory’s price would plummet leading to a decrease in demand as the main reason people want to buy ivory is to display their wealth and make themselves appear more successful and nobody would want to buy ivory if it became cheap. Legalizing ivory trade would unincentivize elephant …show more content…
These may seem like an end-all-be-all to whether or not ivory trade should be legal, however under closer inspection these ideas turn out to be false. Legal sources for ivory may be used to launder illegal ivory; there are 34 legal ivory factories and 134 legal ivory outlets in China. A miniscule amount of illegally produced ivory is mixed in with the legal ivory. It is estimated that about 99% of all illegal ivory is sold through alternative means such as illegal outlets, online stores, and personal networks. Corruption is so widespread that no legal system could ever work; it is due to the ivory ban that corruption spread in the first place, evident by the fact that the countries with the most corrupt ivory trade are the ones that already have trade bans. Legal ivory trade would be completely different than the existing corrupt one; increasing supply would increase demand; the legal ivory sales of 1999 and 2008 did not increase demand, and instead decreased it. The main causes for increases in the demand for ivory were the 2009 financial crisis, as people saw ivory as an investment vehicle,
Allow me to begin by clearing up some common misconceptions about legal ivory trade. Legalizing ivory trade does not mean letting poachers …show more content…
The main reason ivory is popular is because it is expensive; its only purpose in today’s world is to display wealth, but it wasn’t always as expensive as it is today. In 2002 ivory cost only $150 per kilogram; a price dwarfed by the ridiculously exorbitant $900 per pound vendors were asking for in 2012. The main causes for this massive spike in price was due to ivory trade bans. Illegal goods are a great deal more expensive than their legal counterparts; that is a fact. If ivory was legalized, ivory’s price would plummet leading to a decrease in demand as the main reason people want to buy ivory is to display their wealth and make themselves appear more successful and nobody would want to buy ivory if it became cheap. Legalizing ivory trade would unincentivize elephant …show more content…
These may seem like an end-all-be-all to whether or not ivory trade should be legal, however under closer inspection these ideas turn out to be false. Legal sources for ivory may be used to launder illegal ivory; there are 34 legal ivory factories and 134 legal ivory outlets in China. A miniscule amount of illegally produced ivory is mixed in with the legal ivory. It is estimated that about 99% of all illegal ivory is sold through alternative means such as illegal outlets, online stores, and personal networks. Corruption is so widespread that no legal system could ever work; it is due to the ivory ban that corruption spread in the first place, evident by the fact that the countries with the most corrupt ivory trade are the ones that already have trade bans. Legal ivory trade would be completely different than the existing corrupt one; increasing supply would increase demand; the legal ivory sales of 1999 and 2008 did not increase demand, and instead decreased it. The main causes for increases in the demand for ivory were the 2009 financial crisis, as people saw ivory as an investment vehicle,