The idea that he was proposing for discussion was which has the greater likelihood of success: animal preserve which is a piece of land with restricted property rights or commerce with clearly defined property rights, which is a point in making with China’s tiger policy. I haven’t read much on China’s policy but it is along the lines of opening up a market for tiger preservation by letting people breed them. An example of successful breeding and also ‘saving from extinction’ is Bison under the auspices of Ted Turner. Idea being as long as there is a market for bison meat people will breed bisons and they will not go extinct. In words of Dr. Gordon “ As long as I can pick up my Bison Burgers from Trader Joe's, I know bisons are safe.” The optimistic faith of an economist in the omnipotent market!
A couple of points before I proceed:
1. India’s preserves (akin to the idea of wilderness preserves in USA) are controlled by Ministry of Environment & Forest, which exercises its jurisdiction on about 20% Indian land with clearly defined property rights.
2. Not so much as wildlife preserves, but the Indian forests are a mighty corporate organization run inefficiently, and a legacy of the British Raj which set it up for motives that were completely market driven, cheap timber may be the keyword here. Had I not been mellowed down by the Economic Thinking (ET) class, I would have used the words like: capitalist, imperialists, exploitative!
3. One of the biggest market for poached Indian tigers is China (if not the largest).
So who will succeed?
From ET lenses, it seems that opening up the preservation to commercial interest would be a good idea. People can make money off raising tigers, people will raise them. There are rules to be followed while doing this, enforceable rules, people will follow them. Thus, there being property tights defined, conflicts will be minimized.
But, isn’t there a market for poached tigers and wasn’t there money to be made in killing tigers? That too incurring hardly any marginal cost for killing every next. I don’t think the poacher is smart enough (just by virtue of being one) or an economic thinker. If he did figure that by killing the next tiger he just decreased his chance of finding the next one, thus increasing his time and effort, he would attribute it as an externality! He would go on as long as there is good money to be made. Also, the low opportunity cost as the risk of being caught was probably low, and he was otherwise unemployed if not a profession poacher. Those are his marketable skills.
But coming back to the question of who will succeed? Either both or at least India!
Assuming market succeeds first and China is exporting tiger bone mix to dollar stores (or Trader Joe's shelves), the biggest market for poached tigers collapses! In fact, the whole poached market collapses (assuming it is highly unlikely that embargoes are successfully imposed on import by poacher lobbies) Tigers are safe in their preserves and outside.
Assuming commercialization approach in China doesn’t take off, situation is as is today. Preservations in India, with clear property rights, enforce better day by day (as other wise they will go out of business if there are no tigers left to save) to keep the salaries coming to those employed. Things get tougher for poachers, cost are way to up. They close business. Everyone works for remuneration, tangible or non-tangible! Tigers saved!
Oh yeah, what if by the time commercialization in China succeeds preservations are wiped clean of paw marks? Impossible. That is where strict Government Policy comes in which will be sufficiently lobbied for by environmentalist of all kinds (tree huggers, wilderness lovers, shallow and deep ecologists, and aerosol researchers and tiger lovers like me). Competition would be too immense for the unorganized poaching industry. Wouldn’t they wish they had trade unions?
P.S. Title says production as it would hardly be procreation when commercialized.
The image has been taken from malayantiger.net
1 comment:
I have to disagree with Ghandi about poverty and pollution, because rich people use a lot more acres of resources than the poor. If everyone lived like Americans, we would need 3 worlds of natural resources to support ourselves. Consuming resources causes pollution. It is a shame that so many in China still use poached tigers in medicine, and tiger production seems to make sense to support this market. It is sad that such a majestic creature should be breed and slaughtered like cattle though, when predator meat isn't even full of nutrients like meat from herbivores, and superstition makes only the tiger penis valuable for infertility.
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