Privatize the Elephant
Have you heard about this?
Curious to know if this was right, I did a bit of research. It's more than right.
In most nations around the world wildlife are owned and managed by the State. However, in the past 30 years Zimbabwe, Namibia and South Africa have altered their legal regimes to give full control over the use of wildlife to the private owners of the land on which the wildlife are located. Following the privatization of wildlife management in southern African nations, wildlife tourism on private lands has boomed. In Zimbabwe, a majority of many desirable species - including 94 percent of eland, 64 percent of kudu, 63 percent of giraffe, 56 percent of cheetah, and 53 percent of both sable and impala -- are found on commercial ranch properties. In Namibia, wildlife populations on private lands have risen by 80 percent since the creation in 1967 of a regime of private wildlife ownership. Privatization of control over use of wildlife has had more success in promoting biodiversity in the southern African region than any other policy measure. Other parts of the world may be able to benefit from the lessons learned from the successes of southern African nations in privatization and commercialization of wildlife. Based on the southern African experience, many wildlife managers should reconsider whether positive incentives might not be more effective in the future in promoting wildlife populations than the past club of state commands and controls.
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Sep '10
Re: Privatize the Elephant
This is great news. Once again the developing world is showing the "old" world the way forward.
May '11
Re: Privatize the Elephant
If you really want to increase the numbers of any species, declare it food.
Cows and chickens are not in any danger of becoming extinct because we raise them in vast numbers for food.
Nov '10
Re: Privatize the Elephant
Somehow private loos are always cleaner than public loos too.
Maybe there's a general lesson in political economy to be learned here...
Apr '11
Re: Privatize the Elephant
I had not heard about this particular speech / these particular facts, but, yes. I've heard of it. Peter Hathaway Capstick wrote rather elegantly and somewhat persuasively on the subject, albeit tangentially.
Nov '10
Re: Privatize the Elephant
Pilli: If you really want to increase the numbers of any species, declare it food.
Cows and chickens are not in any danger of becoming extinct because we raise them in vast numbers for food. · Nov 26 at 3:59a
Are you saying Thanksgiving Pandas are the way forward?
Jul '10
Re: Privatize the Elephant
I saw this demonstrated conclusively years ago, on a PBS program. One of the shocking facts stated on the show was that elephant herds require such enormous amounts of food that, given free rein and a lack of natural predators, they will eventually eat themselves into extinction.
The show included an interview with a conservationist, one of these "save the elephants" types. She was utterly indifferent to the evidence, said even if it could be proved beyond doubt that allowing limited hunting of elephants resulted in increased elephant herds, she would be against it. Killing elephants is wrong and she wants it to remain illegal; better elephants as a species should commit slow suicide than that a single elephant should be killed by man. (I'm not being hyperbolic, by the way. She actually expressed that last sentiment, quite unashamedly.)
In other words, it's never been about the elephants. All that matters is how radical conservationists FEEL about the elephants.
Edited on Nov 26, 2011 at 6:08amMar '11
Re: Privatize the Elephant
Aodhan
Pilli: If you really want to increase the numbers of any species, declare it food.
Cows and chickens are not in any danger of becoming extinct because we raise them in vast numbers for food. · Nov 26 at 3:59a
Are you saying Thanksgiving Pandas are the way forward? · Nov 26 at 4:23am
Spoken tongue in cheek perhaps but if one was seriously interested in preserving endangered species is that not exactly the sort of proposition that should be put under consideration? Private property rights combined with market demand? How many historical examples are required before activists take the rose colored glasses off the problem at the center of their cause and embrace a proven method that has the best record for managing scarce resources and indeed increasing those resources.
Oct '10
Re: Privatize the Elephant
Roberto
Aodhan
Pilli: If you really want to increase the numbers of any species, declare it food.
Cows and chickens are not in any danger of becoming extinct because we raise them in vast numbers for food. · Nov 26 at 3:59a
Are you saying Thanksgiving Pandas are the way forward? · Nov 26 at 4:23am
Spoken tongue in cheek perhaps but if one was seriously interested in preserving endangered species is that not exactly the sort of proposition that should be put under consideration? Private property rights combined with market demand? How many historical examples are required before activists take the rose colored glasses off the problem at the center of their cause and embrace a proven method that has the best record for managing scarce resources and indeed increasing those resources. · Nov 26 at 6:10am
No amount of evidence will change the collectivist mind. In their world the enemy of all things is the individual. Elephants will never matter as much as the evil farmer who might own them.
Nov '10
Re: Privatize the Elephant
"If you put the federal government in charge of the Sahara Desert, in 5 years there'd be a shortage of sand." - Milton Friedman
May '11
Re: Privatize the Elephant
This year hurricane Irene erased 6 sea turtle nests (average about 100 eggs each) on the little bit of beach I use. The nests are always well marked by gov't. people and you better not touch or even go near one. You have to have an impossible to get permit to remove the eggs and incubate them to hatchlings "artificially."
Question: How many of the eggs would have survived the hurricane if they were in human custody and care?
There could be hundreds of thousands more sea turtles roaming the sea in just a few years if the enviro-nuts would just get out of the way.
This is just one example of the anti-human attitude these people have.
BTW...turtles and turtle eggs are good to eat. See comment above.
Aug '10
Re: Privatize the Elephant
I had been hoping someone would try this, so I'm glad to hear it's been done with the success I expected. (Funny how we don't often hear that this type of conservation is happening.)
Now, if the same thing could be done for tigers...
Nov '11
Re: Privatize the Elephant
Aodhan
Pilli: If you really want to increase the numbers of any species, declare it food.
Cows and chickens are not in any danger of becoming extinct because we raise them in vast numbers for food. · Nov 26 at 3:59a
Are you saying Thanksgiving Pandas are the way forward? · Nov 26 at 4:23am
Are pandas any better than turkeys?.. Or cows for that matter? I personally find cows cuter.
In the end, it´s always about us. We have become neurotically self-obsessed. We humanize nature to a point that one would find it insulting.
Hannan is brilliant as always by the way.
Nov '11
Re: Privatize the Elephant
Question: How many of the eggs would have survived the hurricane if they were in human custody and care?
There could be hundreds of thousands more sea turtles roaming the sea in just a few years if the enviro-nuts would just get out of the way.
BTW...turtles and turtle eggs are good to eat. See comment above. · Nov 26 at 7:02am
Exactly! One of things that I always find amusing is that of all of the animal rights activists I have ever met (and I have met quite a few), none have ever worked or grew up on a farm. Their knowledge of nature and rural living always seems to be second-hand.
Edited on Nov 26, 2011 at 7:31amNov '10
Re: Privatize the Elephant
Grizzly bears in the lower 48 will be on the endangered species list forever even though their numbers have increased dramatically in the last 30 years. This has happened in spite of the decline of white bark pine nuts, claimed by some to be their main staple food source. They have expanded into ranges they were once thought to have never inhabited, such as the Wind River Range. They have been spotted in open country far from any mountains. While they are owned by the government, they have attained sacred idol status among the natives.
This has not worked out too well in certain respects. They are adored and romanticized in spite of the reality that they are killing their worshipers at an alarming rate, rendering the lands they inhabit less and less habitable by their devoted humans.
Apr '11
Re: Privatize the Elephant
In New York City, the private parks, ala Bryant and Zuccotti(minus OWS), are safer and cleaner.
Jun '10
Re: Privatize the Elephant
Put the word "public" in front of any noun and consider the results: public education, public housing, public transportation, public toilet, public swimming pool (I repeat myself).
Re: Privatize the Elephant
Nicely done, Mr. Hannan, my favorite MEP. My professor in grad school gave us a paper he co-authored showing how preservation of migratory bird refuges in Louisiana gave way to giving the Audubon Society private property rights to the preserve, and thereafter oil leases were let by them. It's still happening today.
Aug '10
Re: Privatize the Elephant
There has been a similar experience with commercial buffalo herds in the U.S
Dec '10
Re: Privatize the Elephant
I'd also like to recommend Hannan's recent article on what evil capitalists really believe. It might be worthy of a full post.
Dec '10
Re: Privatize the Elephant
Interestingly, that might have a little to do with the food observation that Pilli made above. It's not exactly a mass-consumed meat, but just a few buffalo ranchers are enough to keep the species thriving.