06. Exam - Global Political Economy of Elephant Poaching and Ivory Trafficking Flashcards
(32 cards)
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?
- To probide valuable PE insights into the specific problem of the decimation of African Elephants.
What is the background of the African elephant and what is the key driver for their poaching?
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.
What is conspicuous consumption?
Use of goods to make a statement to others about one’s accomplishments or class.
What are the five principles that the authors found?
Principle of:
- Historical specificity
- Circular and cumulative causation
- Uneven development
- Heterogeneous Agents
- Contradiction
Explain the principle of historical specificity
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.
What did the authors find when looking at the historical specificity of African Elephants
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.
Explain the principle of circular & cumulative causation as it looks like for African elephants
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.
Why is there uneven development?
African nations are not as developed so are exploited
Conspicuous consumption is a fundamental aspect of culture - where is it most keenly felt and where has moved away from this?
- 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
The study also looked at the different areas of Sub-Saharan Africa, what did they find?
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
One of the key parts of the CCC model is the Habitat Loss. Why is habitat loss a problem?
- Elephants require large areas to roam
- Land is required for agriculture and to earn an income
- Poverty increases the chance of elephant loss.
One of the key parts of the CCC model is Crime and Corruption. How does this impact elephants?
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.
One of the key parts of the CCC model is Weak Regulatory Reform. How does this impact elephants?
???
Explain the principle of uneven development
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.
Explain China’s involvement in the uneven development?
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
The study showed what results in relation to regulated poaching?
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)
What are the three key area for policy implications determined after studying the CCC for elephants?
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.
How would 1) Tackling the CCC problem of uneven development by promoting growth and development look in Africa?
- 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.
How would 2) Strengthening anti-corruption networks and stronger law systems look in Africa?
- It is noted that the countries with unregulated markets have declining elephant populations, so enforce domestic laws with fines and jail terms.
How would 3) Understand and recognise the culture of conspicuous consumption in China look in Africa?
- 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.
Explain the principle of heterogeneous agents?
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.
Who are the heterogeneous agents? and what roles do the play?
- 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)
What is the role of asymmetric information
End consumers may not understand the cost to the elephant or may not understand that the ivory has been taken or trafficked illegally.
Explain the role of the elephants and how they contribute to the problem in the principle of heterogeneous agents? (6)
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
