[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.