A $375m bonfire can send a powerful message

The African Wildlife Foundation is calling it "the largest ivory destruction event in history".

Kenyan wildlife authorities on Monday started moving at least 105 tons of ivory and 1 ton of rhino horn in preparation for the torching of the items at the end of the month. It's to try to put a damper on the ivory and horn trade that is fueling poaching of these magnificent mammals.

The stockpile is from elephants and rhinos killed in conflicts with people, problem-animal control, and those that died naturally or were killed by poachers, Kenya Wildlife Service Deputy Director Patrick Omondi told The Associated Press.

Estimated black market prices - ivory at $1,000 to $1,500 a pound, rhino horn at $30,000 a pound - would put the value of the bonfire at about $375 million.

The mass destruction is timed to coincide with an April 28-30 summit on protection of elephants in Kenya, which hosted the first ivory-destruction event in 1989 under then-President Daniel Arap Moi.

Still, people wonder if it's worth it, if this kind of grandstanding showmanship really has any effect at all.

Why, for argument's sake, wouldn't it be better to use such a haul of ivory to flood the market, drive down prices and nudge the trade to fizzle out?

First of all, according to Ronald Orenstein, author of Ivory, Horn and Blood: Behind the Elephant and Rhinoceros Poaching Crisis (Firefly 2013), 106 tons of ivory isn't enough.

"It's not going to flood the market, it wouldn't drive down the price, it wouldn't affect the market at all," he said.

A recent study by the conservation group Save the Elephant (STE) found that of the 2,600 tons of illegal ivory exported between 2004 and 2014, up to 1,900 tons could have entered Far Eastern black markets.

The study's statistical modeling suggests that as much as 1,000 tons of ivory remains in raw form in private stockpiles.

To the researchers "this strongly suggests that speculation was at work. Investors were hoarding raw tusks, betting that prices would rise".

Unlike granite or marble, ivory does not store well. Without climate control, it tends to dry out, get brittle and lose its value. It also needs to be kept secure and guarded against theft, which has happened, sometimes on a grand scale. In 2014, thieves broke into a secure vault at the Zambia Wildlife Authority and made off with 30 tusks valued at $1 million.

So there is at least one practical argument for your destroying ivory: It saves you the cost of storage.

Critics of ivory destruction argue that instead of being burned, the ivory could be sold, and the proceeds used to fund conservation efforts.

But experience has shown that selling stimulates the market and stimulating the market stimulates poaching, Orenstein said.

Destroying ivory does not send a message to poachers - seat-of-the-pants entrepreneurs who are probably not known for the heed they pay to media events; it sends a message to buyers.

That message: "This is a liability, not an asset," Orenstein said. "This is something we don't want anywhere else but on an animal. That's the only value it has."

A global ban on the ivory trade in 1989 briefly halted the elephants' demise. But the ban's initial success was undermined by booming Asian economies and increasing demand for land.

Africa had 1.3 million elephants in the 1970s but has only 500,000 today.

The good news is that advocacy and demand-reduction campaigns may actually be working. The STE study suggests a connection between a precipitous drop in ivory prices and President Xi Jinping's pledge in September to close up China's domestic ivory markets.

"We found the black market prices in May had crashed to $442 a pound," said Daniel Stiles, author of the STE study An Analysis of Ivory Demand Drivers.

"Raw ivory prices in China have tumbled along with all commodity prices over the past several months," Stiles writes on the National Geographic website. "But because of uncertainty over other investment outcomes, elephant poaching and ivory seizure rates seem to suggest that - like gold - ivory continues to be an attractive investment for some. The drop in price might actually be perceived as an investment opportunity, unfortunately."

Destroying the ivory suggests the old adage about the difference between being involved and being committed. In an egg and bacon breakfast, the chicken is involved but the pig is committed.

Destroying the ivory is commitment. It's telling the world, as Orenstein puts it: "This will never be on sale, there will never come a day when it will ever be available again. This is not temporary; this is forever. It's not coming back, we're not going to let it happen."

Contact the writer at chrisdavis@chinadailyusa.com.