Rhino Horn Trade: A Very Pointed Bubble

-


Can you imagine a horn having more value than gold in the international black market? Well, I was as shook as you are when I found out!
The Rhino horn trade is far more complex than it seems to be. Rhinoceros  poaching was banned in India in 1910. Yet Rhino poaching trends have been high and not so surprisingly the horn is the most sought after body part of Rhinos. Despite it being a punishable offence, these poachers who are generally skillful sharpshooters take the risk as the yields are beyond believable!

A kilo of Rhino horn is pegged at around $100,000 in the international market with an average horn being around 1-3 kg. The price is perhaps more than that of Gold or Cocaine. Why? Let’s look at the demand.
The ever increasing demand of Rhino horns has seen upto 30% rise in the past 13 years. This insane demand comes from Vietnam, and China, as it’s believed that Rhino horns have Cancer curing properties. This belief was strengthened by a rumour that swept Vietnam in mid 2000’s that imbibing Rhino horn powder had cured a Vietnamese politician’s cancer. Some blame the rising number of wealthy people in Vietnam to be another reason for this newly found in interest. The tally of multimillionaires has risen by 150% in the last 5 years. Rhino horn powder is used as a Cocaine like party drug. Wealthy Vietnamese and Asian expatriate business elites in Vietnam also apparently use rhino horn as an aphrodisiac and as a cure for impotence. The convention on International Trade On Endangered Species notes that this rising wealth is “inflating a bubble of demand of Rhino horn”.

According to report submitted by conservative to Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) rhino horns were illegally transported to Vietnam through Nepal, but with stricter laws against poaching and Rhino horn smuggling in Nepal the transit route has now shifted to Myanmar. India which is a home to 3000 one horned Rhinos has not been able to successfully control illegal smuggling of Rhino horn. “The Rhino horn trade could potentially invite threats to national security as some armed militant groups in North East India have reportedly been found to be involved in the rhino horn trade in exchange of arms.” Said Bibhab Talukdar, Chair of the IUCN SSC Asian Rhino Specialist Group. The IUCN Asian Rhino Specialist Group (AsRSG) is currently negotiating the preparation of a national rhino conservation strategy, involving India’s ministry of environment, forests and climate change, as well as Assam, Bengal and UP governments.

With alarmingly high trends of rhino poaching in India there is an urgent need of stringent laws to prevent poaching as well as Rhino horn smuggling. The routes of this illegal trade network need to be blocked or checked. These steps can be effective only if the countries involved join hands and work collectively towards wiping out the illegal horn trade for it leads to serious environmental imbalance with reducing number of Rhinos and leads to negative economic implications in the way of drain of foreign exchange.

Written by:
Deeksha Sharma
Year I

References:
https://goo.gl/w2oeQz
https://goo.gl/AjVxEYv
https://goo.gl/jQ7Vfw

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

THE BIG FAT INDIAN WEDDING IS PERHAPS TOO FAT FOR OUR ECONOMY

-
Weddings are a feast anywhere in the world. But in India, weddings are a full blown festival with vibrant colors, jolly faces and beautiful memories. The Big Fat Indian weddings are as magnanimous as the ones shown in bollywood. Technically similar to any other (usually) small ceremony, a key difference is the money spent on everything. People usually spend all of their savings just to make that one day, a big day for them. So when it comes to weddings, Indian parents don’t even do any kind of cost-benefit analysis and it’s more like a reflex where the moment their children decide to get married, they open this treasure trove of money and jewellery that they have been collecting/saving since the day their children were born. Indian cinema has been the protagonist in this community wide change of preferences for weddings that people have recently had. But now the question that arises is- Is it worth it for people to spend all their savings in one day? Why have people changed their pref
Read more

You've Been Served: India and the GDP Fudge

-
GDP i.e., Gross Domestic Product is defined as the final value of goods and services produced within a country in a specific time period - monthly, quarterly or annually. As per Samuelson and Northadaus in their seminal textbook, 'Economics', GDP gives an overall picture of the state of an economy just like a satellite in space surveys the weather across an entire continent. GDP enables policymakers, central banks, economists and businesses to analyze the impact of various policies and decisions made by the government for the economy. The task of measuring the economic activities of India and further releasing the GDP of the country is taken care of by the Central Statistical Organization (CSO) which releases the GDP quarterly in every Financial year. So, when CSO released the GDP of Q3 of FY16, there were many debates about the fudging done by the government to prove demonetization, as a big success. Some were of the view that the government was trying to fudge the actu
Read more

Cryptocurrency And The Changing World

-
Cryptocurrency aims to revolutionise the way we transact in a world no longer only physical, but also virtual. It has aimed to remove middlemen such as our central banks and to give much power back to the people in the money market. And as expected, our governments are fighting back. There is a lack of clarity and homogeneity in how the states treat and think about cryptocurrency. A legitimate form of virtual money? A commodity? or a financial security? All these terms and labels have different ramifications because of which the values of cryptocurrencies have fluctuated so massively. While both sides on the debate of crryptocurrency fight, the world deals with the consequences. But what are these impacts on the global financial sector and world economy? Let's have a look. The use of cryptocurrencies does not require authorization by any middlemen which means there is no surveillance for what it is used. Transaction fees are minimal, as low as a couple cents for some cryptocurren
Read more