06. Exam - Global Political Economy of Elephant Poaching and Ivory Trafficking

Question 1

What was the objective of the review performed by Curtin University in regards to understand the global political economy of elephant poaching and ivory trafficking?

Answer 1

• To probide valuable PE insights into the specific problem of the decimation of African Elephants.

Question 2

What is the background of the African elephant and what is the key driver for their poaching?

Answer 2

Currently 423000-658,000 remain down from 1.3m-2.5m in 1979. The key driver for poaching is the culture of conspicuous consumption of ivory.

Question 3

What is conspicuous consumption?

Answer 3

Use of goods to make a statement to others about one’s accomplishments or class.

Question 4

What are the five principles that the authors found?

Answer 4

Principle of:

• Historical specificity
• Circular and cumulative causation
• Uneven development
• Heterogeneous Agents
• Contradiction

Question 5

Explain the principle of historical specificity

Answer 5

Marx believed that each part of history needed to be studied to understand. In this case the study examines the phases of evolution of the African elephant decimation from about the 19th century in the context of long waves of growth and accumulation for the wold and for particular nations or area.

Question 6

What did the authors find when looking at the historical specificity of African Elephants

Answer 6

Long-waves of Polanyi’s double movement:
1) markets over-exploited ivory
2) control and supervision is imposed
Resistance movements came into play
1) well connected syndicates resisted protection
2) African locals respond to disincentives such as poverty, lack of education and political concerns such as corruption.

Question 7

Explain the principle of circular & cumulative causation as it looks like for African elephants

Answer 7

The CCC looks at multiple factors of social change and examines the extent to which the factors interact.
Culture of Conspicuous Consumption occurs due to:
- uneven development
- habitat loss
- weak regulatory framework
- crime and corruption
with the African Elephant crisis in the middle. These are all interconnected.

Question 8

Why is there uneven development?

Answer 8

African nations are not as developed so are exploited

Question 9

Conspicuous consumption is a fundamental aspect of culture - where is it most keenly felt and where has moved away from this?

Answer 9

• Rising in China - and responsible for much of the ivory trafficking
• Decreasing in Japan as youth values moved away from thinking ownership of ivory was cool

Question 10

The study also looked at the different areas of Sub-Saharan Africa, what did they find?

Answer 10

That Southern Africa from 1979 did not increase much but Botswana in this group greatly increased elephants through protection

• shoot to kill policy
• valuing ecotourism
• valuing nature
• valuing their elephants

Question 11

One of the key parts of the CCC model is the Habitat Loss. Why is habitat loss a problem?

Answer 11

• Elephants require large areas to roam
• Land is required for agriculture and to earn an income
• Poverty increases the chance of elephant loss.

Question 12

One of the key parts of the CCC model is Crime and Corruption. How does this impact elephants?

Answer 12

Misuse of entrusted power for private gain

• means crime increases where there is no / low control
• civil war becomes more likely
• low levels of growth and high levels of poverty spur criminal behaviour.

Question 13

One of the key parts of the CCC model is Weak Regulatory Reform. How does this impact elephants?

Answer 13

???

Question 14

Explain the principle of uneven development

Answer 14

It is the key variable and is connected to each of the other factors. It leverages the ecological Prebish-Singer hypothesis which states:

• periphery countries suffer negative social and ecological costs of soil degradation, deforestation as well as biomass depletion of fish, cattle and wildlife.
• core of semi peripheral nations tend to have lower levels of threatened mammals.

Question 15

Explain China’s involvement in the uneven development?

Answer 15

China is exhausting the peripheral countries in sub-saharan Africa through exhaustion of minerals and energy. In turn China continues to boom. China and Africa swap roads and railways for raw materials.

The presence of Chinese business men in Africa is increasing and so is illegal poaching

Question 16

The study showed what results in relation to regulated poaching?

Answer 16

More regulation correlated with higher human development index and lower corruption and also in lower number of illegally killed elephants (Southern Africa)
Low / no regulation correlated with lower human development index, higher corruption and higher illegally killed elephants (Central and West Africa)

Question 17

What are the three key area for policy implications determined after studying the CCC for elephants?

Answer 17

1) Comprehensively tackle the CCC problem of uneven development by promoting growth and development
2) Strengthen anti-corruption networks and stronger laws enforced
3) Understand more (and recognise) the culture of conspicuous consumption in China.

Question 18

How would 1) Tackling the CCC problem of uneven development by promoting growth and development look in Africa?

Answer 18

• Because African resistance groups arise due to factors such as high corruption and poverty, and poverty leads to crime, look at policies which provide subsidies on food and provision of education.

Question 19

How would 2) Strengthening anti-corruption networks and stronger law systems look in Africa?

Answer 19

• It is noted that the countries with unregulated markets have declining elephant populations, so enforce domestic laws with fines and jail terms.

Question 20

How would 3) Understand and recognise the culture of conspicuous consumption in China look in Africa?

Answer 20

• questions to be asked:
• is Africa paying a fair price for roads?
• are we educating the wrong people? eg. should education be directed at the end consumer rather than the locals re value of conservation.

Question 21

Explain the principle of heterogeneous agents?

Answer 21

This provides a more indepth analysis of complexities and looks at the various actors in a complex circuit of elephant poaching and ivory trafficking. It aims to identify each actor and their diverse social roles.

Question 22

Who are the heterogeneous agents? and what roles do the play?

Answer 22

• Elephants - main agent
• Foreign investors (access to habitat)
• Local Rural farmers (access to habitat)
• Commercial hunters (access to elephants)
• Transporters
• Ivory Middlemen (pay weapons, food & money to hunters and receive Ivory back) - also pay bribes to Govt officials & Local authorities
• Govt officials - allow trafficking to:
• International middlemen (who traffic to:)
• International vendors / buyers
• Local authorities - allow trafficking to:
• urban vendors and carvers
• Local consumers (small market)

Question 23

What is the role of asymmetric information

Answer 23

End consumers may not understand the cost to the elephant or may not understand that the ivory has been taken or trafficked illegally.

Question 24

Explain the role of the elephants and how they contribute to the problem in the principle of heterogeneous agents? (6)

Answer 24

They are the main agent and:

• will take 20-30 years to recover
• have slow reproduction rates (every 5 years)
• babies need two years with their mother to survive.
• have lower # of males due to their tusks being larger
• also lower older females as by maturity they also have large tusks
• loss of older matriarchs induces high level of stress

Question 25

Explain the principle of contradiction?

Answer 25

It is a trade off - resources are being redistributed from one side to another and it requires a careful balance to stop the problem of one force dominating the other. Examples include:

• capital vs labour
• industry vs finance
• profit vs environment

Question 26

What are the two contradictions raised in the elephant poaching review?

Answer 26

1) Markets (fixed capital) vs Ecological (Elephant Capital

2) Production (farming, mining & forestry) vs Elephants (protectionist measures)

Question 27

Explain the first contradiction - Markets vs Ecological?

Answer 27

• Economic rents from ivory trade could lead to mass reductions in genetic diversity and lost tourist revenues
  alternatively:
• Protection of the species will lead to a lack of accumulation of and consumption of ivory and the collapse of the craft industries.

Question 28

Explain the second contradiction - Production vs Elephants?

Answer 28

• Focus on production will result in degraded wildlife corridors; and lack of dispersion of seeds.
  alternatively:
• Protecting elephants will lead to extensive damage to local villages including livestock and farmland; and a lack of growth of extractive industries.

Question 29

Explain the social elephant wealth diagram?

Answer 29

L diagram with crisis on the x axis, and at about a cm off the base of the L a slight incline line which is also crisis. Between the two crises there is a line of balanced contradiction with the destruction of elephants on top and elephant recovery below. On the arc between the two points of the L sit the different parts of SSA - Central, Western are well into destruction, with Eastern just on the destruction side and Southern just on the Recovery side.

Question 30

In the Social Elephant Wealth Diagram, why is there an unattainable area at the bottom of the diagram?

Answer 30

Because elephants do not have resources, education or ability to destroy humans, so this part is not attainable.

Question 31

How can contradiction 2 - Production vs Elephants be resolved?

Answer 31

• Look at policy to incentivise solutions such as to avoid elephants destroying crops introduce bee hive schemes and / or chilli fences. These repel elephants and results in a double benefit as the farmer is now producing honey / chilli as well.

Question 32

What is the key point when looking at contradictions?

Answer 32

Must consider both sides of the contradiction for policy considerations to attempt to achieve balance.