China has experienced an economic boom in recent decades. Although growth has begun to slow down in the past few years, this has not prevented a huge increase in overall population or wealth. This increase has resulted in an increase in demand for luxury goods- including ivory.
However, it is highly unlikely that the second biggest economy in the world would be willing (or even able) to undergo a sudden huge mass conversion to the view that it should immediately ban all ivory trade.
Although China’s authoritarian government has the power to impose such a strict change, it places great value on the cultural significance of its traditional ivory carving industry, and there have been no indicators that this plans to come to an end in the near future.
As economic theory shows, many control and command policies tend to result in undesirable outcomes. Therefore it is more sensible to utilise market-based approaches. A viable long term approach is to give ownership rights to communities who then have trong incentive to protect and manage the elephant population in that area.
In order for such an approach to work, the benefits from the conservation efforts must be transferred directly to these communities.
Furthermore, the government must also be sure to involve the communities in the running of the reserves. This includes transferring a certain fraction of the revenues from the game reserves to the communities.
Many may claim that this policy would be very effective in combatting the illegal ivory trade as when local communities are involved in the protection of the elephant species the cost of poaching becomes much higher.
A SINGLE ELEPHANT'S IVORY CAN BE WORTH AS MUCH AS $150,000-300,000