Elephant Ivory and Tropical Timber: The Role of Trade Interventions in Sustainable Management

Abstract

Trade interventions have been increasingly advocated in recent years as a means to influence the incentives for sustainable resource management in developing countries. The commonly held view is that, for a few key resources, international trade has been a contributing factor to over-exploitation and depletion. As a consequence, curtailing this trade has been advocated as a major part of the solution to the problem. In the case of African elephant ivory, a trade ban has been imposed through the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species. For tropical timber, there are moves to restrict trade to only sustainably produced timber. This paper argues that, at least in these two cases, restrictive interventions may at best be ineffective and at worst counterproductive. Instead, alternative trade and other international mechanisms ought to be developed to encourage trade-related incentivesfor sustain able management.