WEBVTT NOTE Banning the Ivory Trade 1 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:12.000 Good evening. In a dramatic symbolic gesture, the president of Kenya today set fire to a stack of elephant tusks, and he watched as three million dollars worth of ivory went up in smoke. 2 00:00:12.000 --> 00:00:22.000 The tusks had been confiscated from game poachers. They're the frontmen of an illegal trade in ivory that's destroying the very symbol of Africa, the elephant. 3 00:00:22.000 --> 00:00:27.000 The poachers have been slaughtering Africa's great herds of elephants at a shocking rate. 4 00:00:27.000 --> 00:00:31.000 In the last decade, their numbers have been reduced by more than half. 5 00:00:31.000 --> 00:00:36.000 The poaching is now so bad, many experts are talking about the danger of extinction. 6 00:00:36.000 --> 00:00:41.000 But the ivory burning in Kenya today signaled a new determination to stop the slaughter. 7 00:00:41.000 --> 00:00:47.000 The Nairobi government has closed down its own ivory market, and it is urging the world to do the same. 8 00:00:47.000 --> 00:00:53.000 The War on Elephants 9 00:00:53.000 --> 00:01:00.000 More than 300 a day killed by poachers looking for white gold, ivory tusks. 10 00:01:00.000 --> 00:01:07.000 These elephants had their heads hacked off with chainsaws. 11 00:01:07.000 --> 00:01:12.000 All that's left are vulture droppings on their backs and the stench of death. 12 00:01:12.000 --> 00:01:16.000 What is happening to the elephant now is no less than a holocaust. 13 00:01:16.000 --> 00:01:26.000 The numbers are sickening. Three quarters of a million elephants killed in the last eight years. That's half the total number. 14 00:01:26.000 --> 00:01:32.000 In Uganda, there are almost no elephants left. Kenya's herd has been cut by 85 percent. 15 00:01:32.000 --> 00:01:41.000 In a continent so poor, the lure of ivory is powerful. It's a half a billion dollar a year industry. Ivory sells for $200 a kilo. 16 00:01:41.000 --> 00:01:49.000 All African states agree they want to stop the poaching, but they disagree vehemently on how to do that. 17 00:01:49.000 --> 00:01:56.000 Today in Kenya, President Erop Moï symbolically torched 12 tons of ivory worth more than 3 million dollars. 18 00:01:56.000 --> 00:02:05.000 Kenya is calling for a global ban of the ivory trade, saying poaching will stop only when countries like Canada and the U.S. stop buying ivory. 19 00:02:05.000 --> 00:02:14.000 Let us destroy our stocks once and for all, and on the strength of that gesture, appeal to the world to eliminate the ivory trade once and for all. 20 00:02:14.000 --> 00:02:22.000 This plan for a total ban on ivory is supported by the US, Canada, Europe and some African countries, but not all. 21 00:02:22.000 --> 00:02:32.000 We feel highly frustrated when people try and dictate to us who are not informed, who do not have the background, and who may not even be concerned about ecosystems at all. 22 00:02:32.000 --> 00:02:39.000 South Africa, along with Botswana and Zimbabwe, favor the controlled harvesting of ivory rather than a ban. 23 00:02:39.000 --> 00:02:44.000 They say ivory can be treated as a renewable resource through careful management, 24 00:02:44.000 --> 00:02:49.000 and that the numbers of elephants in their countries have actually grown because of conservation. 25 00:02:49.000 --> 00:02:55.000 These countries say a ban on ivory aimed at protecting the elephant will only drive the poachers underground. 26 00:02:55.000 --> 00:03:00.000 This debate on whether or not to totally ban ivory comes to a vote in October 27 00:03:00.000 --> 00:03:04.000 at the International Conference on Trade in Endangered Species. 28 00:03:07.000 --> 00:03:09.000 Still, the killing goes on. 29 00:03:09.000 --> 00:03:12.000 The point here is to end up with more elephants. 30 00:03:12.000 --> 00:03:15.000 The Canadian government thinks it knows how to help 31 00:03:15.000 --> 00:03:18.000 by supporting a total worldwide ban on ivory. 32 00:03:18.000 --> 00:03:20.000 We have a ban here now. 33 00:03:20.000 --> 00:03:24.000 If you try to bring ivory back to Canada, you will lose it at the airport. 34 00:03:24.000 --> 00:03:25.000 Does this make sense? 35 00:03:25.000 --> 00:03:28.000 In Toronto, Patrick Boyer, a conservative MP and an authority 36 00:03:28.000 --> 00:03:32.000 on the way we should deal with endangered species, he thinks we're on the right track. 37 00:03:32.000 --> 00:03:36.000 In Vancouver, Walter Block, who writes on the environment for the Fraser Institute. 38 00:03:36.000 --> 00:03:39.000 He thinks the ban won't help and will probably hurt. 39 00:03:39.000 --> 00:03:46.000 Patrick Boyer, the ivory burned today in Kenya, 12 tons of tusks, 2,500 of them. 40 00:03:46.000 --> 00:03:47.000 Did it make sense? 41 00:03:47.000 --> 00:03:51.000 Yes, it did because it sent a very symbolic message around the globe 42 00:03:51.000 --> 00:03:57.000 to people that think that this issue is not one where the stakes are high. 43 00:03:57.000 --> 00:04:03.000 The stakes are very significant here in what we're talking about economically, but also for the survival of a species. 44 00:04:03.000 --> 00:04:08.000 Well, 2,500 tusks is a lot of symbolism. Walter Block, would you have burned that pile? 45 00:04:08.000 --> 00:04:16.000 No, I think it's a waste. Whenever you burn a valuable product, it's just a waste. And I don't think that the ban will help either. 46 00:04:16.000 --> 00:04:26.000 I think that, first of all, the ban will probably be evaded. And even if it's not evaded, if it's successful, that means that the price of ivory will be driven up. 47 00:04:26.000 --> 00:04:34.760 and with a higher price of ivory, people will have an attempt or will be likely to evade it even more, which is why bans usually don't work. 48 00:04:34.760 --> 00:04:43.520 But Mr. Block, if there are no legal markets for ivory, none, surely at some point the price has to start coming down, nobody is allowed to buy it? 49 00:04:43.520 --> 00:04:53.720 Oh no, on the contrary. To the extent that you're successful and that would mean that the price would just rise very, very high, because there'll always be a black market. 50 00:04:53.720 --> 00:04:59.720 But I think that in looking at this we're really balking up the wrong tree, pardon the pun here. 51 00:04:59.720 --> 00:05:08.720 I think there's a much more viable economically sensible way of preserving the elephants and rhinos and other extinct species. 52 00:05:08.720 --> 00:05:13.720 Okay, well let's get to that in a minute. I want to talk about the ban first. You say it doesn't make sense. Patrick Boyer? 53 00:05:13.720 --> 00:05:20.720 Yes, I think it does. Canadian policy is very clear since Joel Clark announced it in the middle of last month. 54 00:05:20.720 --> 00:05:26.200 And we are effectively taking ourselves out of the ivory market, and we'll be working 55 00:05:26.200 --> 00:05:30.720 for the greatest level of legal protection for the African elephant. 56 00:05:30.720 --> 00:05:31.720 But I want to... 57 00:05:31.720 --> 00:05:34.360 And Walter Block is saying that you can't ban a black market. 58 00:05:34.360 --> 00:05:35.360 No. 59 00:05:35.360 --> 00:05:37.080 Well, I want to pick up, there's two elements to that. 60 00:05:37.080 --> 00:05:42.040 First, it's also very clear that the Canadian position is not premised on the simplistic 61 00:05:42.040 --> 00:05:47.600 assumption that all by changing the legal protection afforded to the African elephant 62 00:05:47.600 --> 00:05:49.160 is a solution to this problem. 63 00:05:49.160 --> 00:05:50.160 It is not. 64 00:05:50.160 --> 00:06:10.160 Mr. Block, the ban doesn't work, what does? 65 00:06:10.160 --> 00:06:13.160 Well, we have a book coming out from the Fraser Institute called 66 00:06:13.160 --> 00:06:16.160 Economics and the Environment, Reconciliation 67 00:06:43.160 --> 00:06:47.160 What do you mean? If we don't have enough elephants to support any sales at all, 68 00:06:47.160 --> 00:06:50.160 then that seems to be supported by the numbers, how does the marketplace help? 69 00:06:50.160 --> 00:06:55.160 Well, the way the marketplace would help is if we privatize these animals. 70 00:06:55.160 --> 00:07:01.160 And in order to make this point very clear, let me make an analogy between the cow and the buffalo. 71 00:07:01.160 --> 00:07:06.160 Now, as far as I'm concerned, the cow and the buffalo are very similar kinds of animals. 72 00:07:06.160 --> 00:07:15.160 Why is it then that the buffalo was virtually extinct, whereas the cow never came within a million miles of being extinct? 73 00:07:15.160 --> 00:07:23.160 And I think the reason is that the cow is always owned privately, whereas the buffalo was owned in common the way the elephant and the rhino now are. 74 00:07:23.160 --> 00:07:34.160 Let me see if I can figure this out. You're saying that if elephants are sold to individuals and owned by individuals, somehow that will increase the supply of elephants. 75 00:07:34.160 --> 00:07:42.660 Yes, if elephants are owned in roughly the way that cows now are, and I understand that there's a rhino farm opening up in Texas somewhere, 76 00:07:42.660 --> 00:07:49.160 if this occurs, then instead of the tusk being sort of like a curse for the elephant because everyone wants to get the elephant, 77 00:07:49.160 --> 00:07:55.160 the tusk will be a means of safeguarding the elephant because the private owners of the elephant, 78 00:07:55.160 --> 00:07:59.660 no more than they'd go into the lower 40 with a machine gun and starting to shoot their cows, 79 00:07:59.660 --> 00:08:03.660 wouldn't do that with their elephants and wouldn't allow anyone else to do it. 80 00:08:03.660 --> 00:08:09.660 to it. So what I'm saying is that the institution of the free market system and privatization 81 00:08:09.660 --> 00:08:12.260 is the last best help for the elephant. 82 00:08:12.260 --> 00:08:13.260 All right, Mr. Boyer. 83 00:08:13.260 --> 00:08:19.020 I think there may be some limited uses to the concept that is being proposed here, but 84 00:08:19.020 --> 00:08:24.800 to suggest that it's possible to privatize all the remaining elephant herds in Africa 85 00:08:24.800 --> 00:08:30.760 does not take into account a number of realities, including the grazing and range areas that 86 00:08:30.760 --> 00:08:32.760 The Theory of Money and Credit 87 00:09:00.760 --> 00:09:30.760 Mr. Block, when you come right down to it, these are large animals, they move around a lot, and that makes them very vulnerable to poachers. They're tough to protect. When it comes right down to it, a poacher looking through the sights of a machine gun trained on an elephant's side doesn't care whether the elephant is owned by Kenya or owned by the fellow down the road. 88 00:09:30.760 --> 00:09:43.400 Well, let me throw this now to Ms. Patrick Boyer. 89 00:09:43.400 --> 00:09:46.600 I don't accept that comparison and I reject that analysis. 90 00:09:46.600 --> 00:09:48.320 We're not talking here about farming. 91 00:09:48.320 --> 00:09:52.040 We're talking about wild animals and their natural habitat. 92 00:09:52.040 --> 00:09:57.040 We're talking about a market that's been driving the poaching. 93 00:09:57.040 --> 00:10:07.540 Fair in mind that of the millions and millions and millions of dollars involved in this, only about 8 to 15 percent of that money ever gets even back into Africa. 94 00:10:07.540 --> 00:10:14.540 We're talking about middlemen that are operating internationally, we're talking about the markets, and this can change. 95 00:10:14.540 --> 00:10:20.540 I think effectively what we're now witnessing, both in Canada, the United States and Western Europe, 96 00:10:20.540 --> 00:10:28.540 is a distinct change in consumer attitudes that is effectively going to see us take ourselves out of the ivory market 97 00:10:28.540 --> 00:10:36.540 and that certainly goes to the point that is being talked about here on the other side in this discussion relating to market forces. 98 00:10:36.540 --> 00:10:40.540 Alright, Walter Block in Vancouver, Patrick Boyer in Toronto, thank you both very much, good night. 99 00:10:40.540 --> 00:10:41.540 My pleasure. 100 00:10:41.540 --> 00:10:42.540 Good night.