[neveroffensive]

> We're just burying our heads in the sand about the reality of it.

As a US citizen, what can we really do. I realize our country shares responsibility for climate change, but isn't a major problem here also poaching? To really solve this, wouldn't Africa have to step up and crack down locally on industry damaging the environment, and poaching?

I don't think anyone is burring their heads in the sand, we just have no power to change things here or abroad. Half of our country still thinks climate change is a hoax...

[dmix]

> Half of our country still thinks climate change is a hoax...

That's not quite true. Most Americans (7 in 10 in a recent study [1]) believe climate change is happening. The difference is that half are unwilling to pay extra in electricity bills and other areas to deal with it.

The overtones of political tribalism in your denouncement of "half of Americans who believe it's a hoax" is good reflection of why politics is so divisive in the US and only grows further apart on important issues.

[1] https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/most-americans-wa...

[fludlight]

The only thing that will significantly slow down poaching is a massive reduction in it's profitability. The only way to do that is with a massive reduction in demand.

Most of the demand comes from SE Asia and China where they think this stuff cures medical conditions.

Long term, those governments need to modify primary and secondary school curricula to unambiguously dispel those myths. Eventually, the people who believe rhino horn cures cancer will die out or be pressured by their children, but this will take at least a generation.

In the meantime some species will go extinct. Their only hope is a sudden and prolonged recession or depression in Asia.

[StevePerkins]

> Long term, those governments need to modify primary and secondary school curricula to unambiguously dispel those myths.

How many people in the developed world believe that vaccination causes autism? Or that they have biological intolerance for MSG? Or take extreme doses of vitamins or minerals?

I don't think that any amount of grammar school curricula could overcome the human tendency to believe in crazy shit, non-backed by science or reason. This human nature even transcends class, and appears among the relative elite (e.g. fear of irradiated food, avoidance of gluten when your not even celiac, Elon Musk's belief that we live in an alien computer simulation, etc).

You can perhaps use school curricula to shift mainstream thought, the Overton window, etc. But there will always be enough "alternative view" enthusiasts that I doubt you could ever eliminate demand for rhino horn as an erectile dysfunction treatment.

[fludlight]

So what? Part of everyone's life will be spent minimizing the damage done by idiots. It's a cost of doing business.

[nasredin]

Do the Chinese/Asian governments do anything WRT to education now?

This seems like it has being going on for a while and the Asian governments just don't do anything.

---

Also WRT to finance incentives for locals: IIRC rhino horn goes for obscene ammount of dollars in Asia, so any tourism dollars will have to compete with that.

[mattsfrey]

The issue of poaching comes up repeatedly on Nat Geo for instance, the usual community outcry being that authorities need to crack down hard on poachers. The end of the day reality though is these poachers are just poor hunters trying to eek out a living and provide for their families and the economic benefit will always trump the legal risks for them. More systemic changes are needed in these locales to reduce the incentive.

EDIT: and worldwide, i.e. reducing the international demand

[ggg9990]

The economic benefit to the government from the giraffes is higher than to the poachers from the hunting. That’s why governments will start protecting these animals with more extreme violence towards poachers as numbers diminish.

[therapeutic]

Perhaps there is a non violent solution to this problem: turn poachers into park rangers. This has been done before[0] and perhaps could solve the problem in governments wanting to protect their wildlife (for tourism revenue) and the necessity of common people to provide for their families.

[0] http://wwf.panda.org/wwf_news/?205830/Former-poacher-turned-...

[pvaldes]

Will not work. This is not a case of poor people freely making choices. If you try to stop Cocaine traffic turning farmers into innkeepers, they will be assassinated or forced to cultivate drugs again by the local narco-chiefs in no time.

If you convert some poachers in park rangers, you are just rewarding their past activity. More poachers will come and fill the place in seconds (now with the hope to reach a redemptive ranger position in the future). The extremely rich families that raised this lucrative system will exerce their power to keep the business running. The name of the poacher pawns is irrelevant for them.

Education will not work either. Too little too late. There are lets say 3000 extant tiger in the planet. We could easily find 3000 selfish people in the planet that want to show a stuffed tiger in their house next year as another rich toddler toy and symbol of power. Not to mention the yummy idea to earn lots of money speculating with the "tigercoin viscera market". Is not realist to expect future generations will have the chance to cleaning this mess. Would be like expecting current australian people to fix the Tasman tiger extinction by their grand parents.

Closing the market and exportation is the only way, but is a difficult goal when a diplomatic luggage can be send to any part of the planet with a full order of lioness bones or leopard tortoises alive inside.

[mattsfrey]

What is the economic benefit of giraffes to the government, tourist draw? Regardless they don't have the resources to cover millions of acres of open savannah, enforcement just isn't going to work for this problem.

[fauigerzigerk]

If the economic benefits of protecting the giraffes outweigh the economic benefits of hunting them, then the resources for enforcement do exist. It's "just" a matter of distributing the benefits effectively.

There isn't just endless savannah. Poachers need local infrastructure, supplies, protection, etc. If locals can make a living from tourism and from protecting the animals, they will stop the poachers and/or stop being poachers.

[oh_sigh]

If poor hunters poach, it is usually to feed their family. Many poachers are professional and make a lot of money for it(because of the risk if caught). Poor hunters usually don't have connections to international smuggling gangs, which is what you would need if you wanted to make money from exporting poached animals.

[ythn]

AFAIK climate change is a small factor in the endangerment of African species. I could be wrong, but is seems like it's not even close at this point compared to poaching.

[worldexplorer]

Yes you are right. India tiger population is increasing but they are still under threat. Government recently joined two tiger reserves near my hometown to create an ecosystem. Maybe they are doing something right. https://www.indiatimes.com/news/india/india-s-tiger-populati...

[jorblumesea]

The idea is climate change + population growth will stress humans on the continent and increase environmental destruction and poaching.

[neveroffensive]

> climate change + population growth will stress humans on the continent and increase environmental destruction

I find it interesting that population growth is discussed so little in the context of climate change. It seems like simple incentives/restrictions could be imposed to reduce birth rates. This would have a major impact on both climate change, and the depletion of the planets resources.

[bsder]

> It seems like simple incentives/restrictions could be imposed to reduce birth rates.

You don't need to do this. The simplest solution to birth rates is to improve the economic power of your women--generally by education. Once women have choices that don't suck, birth rates drop dramatically.

[saagarjha]

People generally don't like it when they're told to not have children, as opposed to say buying an electric car or turning off the lights. Restrictive policies, if applied selectively, can also have an effect similar to eugenics.

[newnewpdro]

Restricting population growth is just another restrictive policy, and not all forms of it resemble eugenics as you've implied here. If you just had a yearly quota of births and members of the population were eligible to enter for a random drawing from the quota, it is not eugenics.

[emodendroket]

I think you are not going to find many advocates of forced abortions and involuntary sterilization.

[saagarjha]

What do you about children born over the quota? Fine their families?

[ythn]

What is the relationship between overpopulation/climate and poaching? I was under the impression poaching was more of a consequence of China's huge homeopathic market than Africa's temperature or population density.

[jorblumesea]

Bushmeat consumption is a huge problem for many African countries and will only get worse when climate change wipes out other crop sources and populations increase. Africa already has massive issues as it stands, and climate change will only make it worse.

If you really think it's going to get better, it won't.

[emodendroket]

There is a lot of demand for this stuff (largely from foreign markets, by the way) and rangers are quite literally risking their lives. https://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/28/science/a-forgotten-step-...

[JoshMnem]

> As a US citizen, what can we really do... Half of our country still thinks climate change is a hoax...

That's one thing people here could work on.

[emodendroket]

The issue is completely politicized and no longer has anything to do with objective reality, so about the only way that's going to happen is Donald Trump going on TV and talking about how global warming is horrible.

[JoshMnem]

Education and media need fixing.