Thread: Preban ivory is my favorite material for scales

Originally Posted by BobH

I just can't connect the dots between the total waste of burning confiscated poached ivory and corruption or the lack of it. The elephant has already paid the price, the poachers likely caught and dealt with and selling it would put money back into communities that drastically need it. We can't eliminate poaching all together but wasting any possible benefit from a dwindling renewable natural resource seems rather pointless.

Bob

It's really simple.

If you allow poahed ivory to be sold after confiscation, the following will happen:

1) poachers will allow ivory to be confiscated by corrupt officials.
2) the corrupt officials will sell the ivory, and the poachers will get their cut of the money.
3) poaching will still be profitable and just continue under a new format.

Corrupt officials in African countries are a given.
If you allow the ivory to be sold at all, poaching will continue because the poachers will still get their cut of money.

You're right that it won't matter to the elephant who is already dead. But as long as you allow the ivory from that elephant to be profitable, there will be a next elephant which will be killed.