Ivory crisis: Growing no-trade consensus

Sekar, Nitin; Clark, William; Dobson, Andrew; Coelho, Paula Cristina Francisco; Hannam, Phillip M.; Hepworth, Robert; Hsiang, Solomon; Kahumbu, Paula; Lee, Phyllis C.; Lindsay, Keith; Pereira, Carlos Lopes; Wasser, Samuel K.; Nowak, Katarzyna

doi:10.1126/science.aat1105

Cited by 6 publications

(5 citation statements)

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“…The interplay between the scale of the public good and the scale of the decisions for participation in the governing institutions may also play a paramount role that needs further exploration and in-depth analysis, both in theoretical and practical settings. Our work is also not intended to suggest that fragmentation would benefit cooperation in otherwise functional inclusive regimes 69 . However, the multi-coalition structure -mainly the encouragement of initiatives with domestic co-benefits -may be the most productive way to "boot-strap" a coalition with broadening participation, including for instance the potential for sub-national, national, and regional carbon markets to eventually harmonize into a global market, gradually removing inefficiencies once behavioral coordination barriers are overcome 70 .…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Our work is also not intended to suggest that fragmentation would benefit cooperation in otherwise functional inclusive regimes. [60] However, the multi-coalition structuremainly the encouragement of initiatives with domestic co-benefits -may be the most productive way to "boot-strap" a coalition with broadening participation, including for instance the potential for sub-national, national, and regional carbon markets to eventually harmonise into a global market, gradually removing inefficiencies once behavioural coordination barriers are overcome. [61] Our results suggest that reducing the scale at which the coordination game occursas with overlapping coalitionscan facilitate larger-scale cooperative outcomes.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Coalition-structured governance improves cooperation to provide public goods

Vasconcelos

Hannam

Levin

et al. 2020

Sci Rep

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While the benefits of common and public goods are shared, they tend to be scarce when contributions are provided voluntarily. Failure to cooperate in the provision or preservation of these goods is fundamental to sustainability challenges, ranging from local fisheries to global climate change. In the real world, such cooperative dilemmas occur in multiple interactions with complex strategic interests and frequently without full information. We argue that voluntary cooperation enabled across overlapping coalitions (akin to polycentricity) not only facilitates a higher generation of non-excludable public goods, but it may also allow evolution toward a more cooperative, stable, and inclusive approach to governance. Contrary to any previous study, we show that these merits of multi-coalition governance are far more general than the singular examples occurring in the literature, and they are robust under diverse conditions of excludability, congestion of the non-excludable public good, and arbitrary shapes of the return-to-contribution function. We first confirm the intuition that a single coalition without enforcement and with players pursuing their self-interest without knowledge of returns to contribution is prone to cooperative failure. Next, we demonstrate that the same pessimistic model but with a multicoalition structure of governance experiences relatively higher cooperation by enabling recognition of marginal gains of cooperation in the game at stake. In the absence of enforcement, public-goods regimes that evolve through a proliferation of voluntary cooperative forums can maintain and increase cooperation more successfully than singular, inclusive regimes.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Coalition-structured governance improves cooperation to provide public goods

Vasconcelos

Hannam

Levin

et al. 2020

Sci Rep

Self Cite

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“…A group of scientists raised this issue in the context of ongoing disputes over elephant ivory trade policy, suggesting that the continued polarization stems from conflicts over values and associated 'mental models' of how elephant conservation can be achieved (Biggs et al, 2017). In response, other scientists rejected the suggestion that opposition to ivory trade is grounded in differing core values or objectives, claiming that it is rather based on differing interpretations of evidence (Sekar et al, 2018). CITES listings and associated trade policy directions rely on scientific evidence (Heim & Böcher, 2016;Friedman et al, 2019), with specialist groups of the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) playing a key informative (and officially neutral) role.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

A conflict of visions: Ideas shaping wildlife trade policy toward African megafauna

Sas‐Rolfes

Gooden²

2023

Preprint

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1. Among factors that threaten wild populations of African megafauna, wildlife trade has gained prominence as a global policy issue, with concerted international campaigns aiming to influence the trade of species such as elephants, rhinos, and lions. Trade policy is strongly contested, confounding attempts to develop coherent approaches across jurisdictions and through international mechanisms such as CITES. This undermines conservation efforts. Understanding the drivers of such conflict may help to address this problem.2. Scholars of political science increasingly recognize the power of ideas as drivers within policy processes. Guided by this literature, we developed an analytical framework and conducted a thematic analysis to examine the ideas driving wildlife trade policy conflict. Our nested case study approach examined debates over trade policy toward African elephants, rhinos, and lions, at two levels: the international policy arena of CITES and within a single country, South Africa. Informed by earlier literature, we tracked the evolution of international trade policy debates over a four-year period (2016–2019) and analysed submissions to a national policy review process in South Africa that took place during 2020.3. During the study period, state and non-state actors contributed to vigorous trade policy debates within seven key thematic issues across the case study species. Arguments were driven by both cognitive ideas, which specify cause-and-effect relationships, and normative ideas, which are values-based and especially salient elements of anti-trade stances.4. Fusing these cognitive and normative ideational elements, we identified three distinct over-arching narratives relating to wildlife trade policy. These three narratives align with broader environmental policy and political narratives and elucidate inherent tensions within the CITES arena. They also reveal differing ethical interpretations and perceptions of risk, precaution, and the role of property rights.5. Policy implications: Wildlife trade policy conflict is driven at least in part by competing ideological visions, which may be entrenched by the CITES Appendix listing system. The structural role of CITES in perpetuating this polarization—and the consequences thereof—warrants further research.

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“…Theoretically, legal trade could increase poached species population sizes by (1) flooding an, otherwise illegal, market with legal product, driving down prices, and therefore decreasing the financial incentive to poach (Walker and Stiles 2010;Biggs et al 2013) and ( 2) by generating sales revenue to fund the conservation of poached species (Stiles 2004;Di Minin et al 2015;Smith et al 2015). It is one of the most controversial theories in conservation biology (Biggs et al 2017;Sekar et al 2018;Eikelboom et al 2020), eliciting strong supporting (Cooney and Jepson 2006) and opposing arguments (Litchfield 2013;Lusseau and Lee 2016;Sekar et al 2018). While mathematical models have been used to demonstrate why flooding the market with legal products may benefit (Gentry et al 2019) or harm (Crookes and Blignaut 2015) different types of poached species, the potential use of legal trade revenue to fund conservation has largely been ignored by mathematical biologists, despite the unique nonlinear feedbacks this policy would create.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%