Rhino horn market driven by interest in investments
A DAYTIME bonfire was staged on Thursday at the San Diego Zoo Safari Park. Its kindling: illegal items made of rhinoceros horn that had been confiscated by the US Fish and Wildlife Service.
The event, which destroyed whole hor ns, or naments and products advertised as medicinals, together worth $1 million (about R14m) on the black market, was meant to draw attention to the scourge of rhino poaching, happening at such an intense rate that experts say the animals could become extinct in 15 years.
Just 5 000 black rhinos and 20 000 white rhinos remain in the wild in Africa, where illegal hunters slaughter them for their horns.
Fish and Wildlife explained the demand for rhino horn like this: “Supposed remedies, which range from cancer treatments to hangover cures, are driving unprecedented poaching. In addition, objects made of rhino horn … have become status symbols to display success and wealth.”
The statement relies on a widely cited belief – that rhino horn is plundered mostly for its use in traditional Asian medicines. But that isn’t correct, said Yufang Gao, a doctoral student in anthropology at Yale University.
In China, as Gao and fellow researchers recently reported in the journal Biological Conservation, the market is driven by interest in art and antiques purchased not as status symbols but as investment pieces.
The difference might seem minor, but it reflects a disconnect that Gao said is rooted in cultural barriers and miscommunication – and could be an important obstacle to ending the illegal trade and poaching.
“Right now, most of the conservation communication programmes only focus on the medicinal value of rhino horn,” he said. “It’s important to consider the art and antique market as a separate trade, and target the people who buy rhino horn because of its collectible and investment value,” as well as auction houses.
Gao said it is certainly true that many Chinese believe rhino horns – which are made of keratin, like fingernails – have healing powers, though there is no scientific proof that they do. Rhinos roamed ancient China, and their horns were used to treat fevers, heart disease and other woes. Those beliefs haven’t died.
In recent years, however, as the growing number of middle-class and affluent Chinese looked for ways to diversify their portfolios and hedge against inflation, the art and antiquities market blossomed – as did their sales of very pricey rhino horn products. They are viewed in China as “excellent” investments with an intrinsic value rooted in the rarity of their material, Gao’s study said.
But you wouldn’t know that from reading Wester n newspapers, which is what Gao and his colleagues did.
They compared 166 articles on the Chinese rhino horn market that were published from 2000 to 2014 in American and British sources – including The Washington Post – with 332 Chinese news articles from the same period.
Seventy-five percent of the Chinese articles reported on rhino horn’s investment value, and just 29 percent on its medicinal value. On the other hand, 84 percent of Western articles mentioned its medicinal value, and only 6 percent its investment value.
Reports on robbery of rhino horn pieces from museums illustrate the discrepancy, Gao said.
A 2011 Guardian article on “an epidemic of UK rhino horn thefts”, for example, attributed it to a demand for rhino horn used in “traditional Chinese medicine”.
“No Chinese would grind the rhino horn antique,” Gao said. “They preserve it, they put it in their house as a collectible, or give it as a gift to someone.”
Here’s the good news, Gao says: Tackling the problem of ivory and rhino horn sold as art or ornaments isn’t insurmountable.
As with current Chinese interest in rosewood or some teas as investments, those are fads, he said. Getting people to abandon belief in rhino horn’s curative powers will be harder.