Recently, the BBC Panorama programme Ivory Wars – Out of Africa, was presented at a very well attended Loefler Lecture at the Muthaiga Country Club, sponsored by the East African Wildlife Society.
My concern about this film was that it presented a very one-sided view of how to conserve elephants and control the illegal international trade in ivory: the Chinese are getting richer and richer, creating a rising demand for ivory thus setting off a new wave of elephant poaching, all initiated by the ill-considered decision of CITES to allow a one-off sale of ivory stocks.
The solutions set out in the film were also the standard ones: stricter trade controls, burn ivory stocks, more anti-poaching and stiffer penalties – ideally death – for poachers, middle men and consumers alike.
One of the few things we do know about the immensely complicated ivory trade is that this standard version is simply wrong and that the simplistic solutions proffered have never worked, are not working and will never work.
Respected economists have pointed out that trade bans are perfectly ineffective, the prohibition of alcohol and hard drugs being classic examples.
Banning trade has not stopped demand for rhino horn, nor will it stop demand for ivory. Perversely, restricting the supply of ivory in the face of growing demand increases the value of existing stocks making it even more profitable to poach even more elephants.
There are many new and exciting ideas out there about the economics of the ivory trade and how it might be managed and regulated to produce a consistent flow of elephant products on a sustainable basis to meet the perfectly justifiable and legal demands of consumers.
So why were these new ideas not presented and discussed in the film? While the BBC enjoys the pretence of being totally independent and objective, the international furore raised in 2007 when this same Panorama programme dared to give a public airing to the views on global warming that did not follow the perceived truth makes it inevitable that strict editorial control was at work here.
I would hazard that today Panorama simply would not dare, or be permitted, to make a film on elephant conservation and the ivory trade expressing any other than the perceived and accepted wisdom.
Programmes like Ivory Wars: Out of Africa do no favour for conservation in general or for elephant in particular, and by repeating such over-simplistic solutions in what is an extremely complex and difficult problem creates a real danger that this view of elephant conservation and management, and of the ivory trade, will attain near cult status.
There is little meaningful public discussion any more of alternatives and those who try to initiate such discussions are simply dismissed as being beyond the pale or in the employ of southern African hunting interests.
Yet elephant conservation and management should be a matter of science, not emotion, and science by its very nature can flourish only under conditions of objectivity, impartiality and above all independence.
Countries that produce ivory and countries that consume ivory all want the same thing, lots of elephant and lots of ivory. So why don’t the producers and the consumers sit down together and work out how to achieve what we all want?
If the Chinese want a regular and sustainable supply of ivory then, if invited, they should be more than willing to invest in elephant conservation and ivory production, as they do with other natural resources in Africa.
A first step might be to formalize, under CITES, all government ivory stocks and by amnesty bring in illegal stocks, all of which could then be released onto the market under controlled conditions to meet demand while controlling prices.
Next might follow investment in harvesting the supply of ivory from natural causes, from both inside and outside protected areas, a supply that would itself grow as elephant populations recovered.
I present these ideas not as a solution but as a plea for rational debate. Let’s face it, the only solution to the Ivory Wars is an Ivory Peace. Surely this is not beyond the wit of mankind?