What A Tragic Loss

[Lady's Human]

It is a tragedy, as is the whole industry. There needs to be a public education campaign in those Asian countries, that ivory is no more special than your own fingernails, and is indeed bad luck to possess. Poachers need to caught, prosecuted and jailed, with all the profits from their ivory sales getting confiscated and turned to conservation efforts. One wonders whether some effort could be made to make it more profitable to keep these giants alive than to kill them, so the poachers could be put to legal, long-term decent wages, instead of a quick score.

You're assuming a coherent government in charge of what happens within their borders, which is not the case in most of Africa. Legal, long term decent wages just don't exist in most areas of the continent. It's a mess of tribalism mixed with the after effects of illuminated colonialism (Heart of Darkness was only borderline fiction). I'd be hard pressed to find an example of a stable country from the second wave of colonialism.

If the tusks from an elephant put food on your table, and you have no other real source of income, the elephant loses.

(Not defending the practice by any means)