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The Illegal Wildlife Trade is a Scarcity Problem

Several biotech start-ups have already entered the world of wildlife conservation.

The initial idea is simple: Recreate the products for which these animals are killed, this can for example be ivory from elephants or rhino horn.

Especially in the case of rhinos this process is not too complicated.

Rhino horn is made from the same material as hair and nails: They are all made from keratin.

After creating the product, it is sold to those people that normally make a living by selling the poached product into the black market.

So you need a product that is like the real deal in every aspect. At least enough so that a black market dealer cannot tell the difference.

While all kinds of fancy technologies are involved in the creation of these products: Technology might be the easiest part.

The real problem is the gap between where this technology is located and where the illegal wildlife dealings are happening.

Most of these biotech companies are located in western countries.

This is a problem: The people working in those companies cannot fully relate to the situation in the countries where the illegal dealings are happening.

These start-ups talk about their great technology and how they are going to replace illegal products with a sustainable substitute. All while maintaining cultures and livelihoods in the affected countries.

Then they start selling their rhino horn powder to crème manufacturers.

Really the main challenge is not one concerning technology. It is a cultural problem, a start-up culture problem.

You might be located in a country with a lot of funding available for start-ups. Yet this funding is only available for you in case you follow the local trends.

Your technology might be good, but if you cannot apply it to the local market it will turn out to fall outside of economic viability: By locating yourself in one of the most competitive start-up locations in the world you have not positioned yourself correctly to solve the problem that you wanted to solve.

Therefore even for high-tech start-ups with high-speed communications: Location remains key.

Wildlife trafficking carries great profitability and this profitability is a fundamental aspect as to why wildlife trafficking remains.

The illegal wildlife trade is an economic construct: These illegal products are valuable. There is scarcity and risk involved in obtaining them. By increasing the risk to obtain them (through increased security measures), the value increases as well. This creates a continuous incentive for poachers and dealers to keep the poaching alive.

Therefore one thing required is an alternative livelihood for those currently involved in the poaching and trafficking.

The lab-grown product needs to be sold in the appropriate countries, otherwise the product will not disrupt the black markets currently selling these illegal wildlife products. Buyers will see clearly what is real and what is fake: Once it is known that there is lab-grown rhino horn, the shipments from Europe and America will stick out.

It is good practice to produce it in the countries where the wildlife products originate. That way the producer keeps the best overview of the situation at hand.

Let the local people do as much of the dealings as possible: This way the buyers will remain with minimal information as to who are the sellers of the real and who are the sellers of the fake.

Also in the case of rhino horn: If it is grown in a lab it is not really fake horn. The composition is the same as the one harvested from a rhino.

So the product is not the problem.

It is all about the presentation of the product to the seller. Initially even that will not matter. It is only after it becomes known that lab-grown horn is being sold that black market traders will become suspicious. And even then some might not care as long as their end costumer cannot tell the difference.

As long as the products can be sold on in a convincing way there will be no way to tell.

Also for the development of the product: It should be practical.

Ivory has a composition much more complex than rhino horn.

And even for rhino horn constructing a full horn is harder than a bag of horn powder.

It is better to start small and sell the horn powder first. Then when revenue is coming in that money can be invested in scaling the project and the necessary research and development. From there you can move on to create whole horns and more complex products.

With time more complex products can be created and brought into the market. Techniques will be improved and funds for more complex projects will become available.

It is important to keep the original vision in mind: Reducing wildlife trafficking and the killing of animals. Yes you can generate a profit, but that profit needs to remain in the service of the vision.

For this method to be effective it is important to keep at it until the lab product becomes a reasonable part of the overall market. Even then you need to be careful: Prices will only go down if supply overtakes demand.

If lab grown wildlife products create a normalisation of those products (more people find it acceptable to use them), demand can increase. That would worsen the situation and would do nothing for the animals.

In that case the prices will go up and the incentive for the poachers and traders will increase. A catastrophic outcome!

Really all this needs to be considered beforehand. Some people say that poisoning the rhino horn will help. This poison is not to kill the consumer, it is merely to make them feel unwell. This way rhino horn will become a feared product.

Another problem that might arise is authorities demanding clarity as to what is real horn and what is lab-grown.

A lab-grown horn is not an illegal product after all. So it should be distinguishable from the poached one.

This can be done through inserting a DNA signature in the lab-grown horn. It might be readable to authorities with a special technique, but not to anyone else.

This too can become a trap. In the case lab horn gets imported as a legal product, corrupt officials can use this verification method to get poached horn approved.

It should not be a problem when coming through the black market: In any case it will be contraband, even when it is lab-grown.

During all this the focus must remain clear: To protect animals from poaching and abuse.

The technological approach will be necessary here. Illegal wildlife trade is an economic construct, which is strong and not erased with harsher policies or more policing.

Many organisations that are fighting poaching are crying: “Give us more money! If more resources were available surely we would stop the poaching.”

Do they not see the war on drugs? How billions and billions are invested in it?

It has been going on for decades and seems to know no end.

So too it will go with the illegal wildlife trade. The difference: Drugs you can legalize. You might have initial problems with the ease of access to them, yet the criminal market for it will shrink. Wildlife products you cannot legalize. You will run out of animals soon and will have failed your mission.

Only through adding technology this problem can be solved.

As mentioned there are legal and social aspects that cannot be ignored.

Yet if we want to save the remaining animals we cannot rely on campaigns to change people’s behaviour.

People in the west are not willing to change theirs. They consume more than anyone else and eat up the world. What makes them think that anyone else will?

People act a certain way because they have been culturally conditioned to do so. They have been told things by family and friends.

Can these behavioural-change campaigners be more convincing than family and friends?

No, that fight was lost before it began.

It is a scarcity problem and can only be solved with abundance.

Any questions or suggestions? Let me know in the comment section. Thank you!

Further Reading:

Poached: Inside the Dark World of Wildlife Trafficking, by Rachel Love Nuwer

The Big Conservation Lie, by John Mbaria

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