mr president let me tell you the story of two african countries
in nineteen seventy-eight kenya banned the hunting of elephants and that decision was followed by an almost total destruction of elephant herds in kenya
round about the same time in nineteen seventy-nine rhodesia as it was still called made elephants the property of whoever's land they were roaming on
result explosion of elephant numbers
we in this house do not think of the elephant in the way that the african does
we are not threatened by it it does not trample our crops it does not destroy our villages and it does not damage human health
the only way to prevent local populations from doing the logical thing which is to eliminate a dangerous menace is by giving them an incentive in treating it as a renewable resource
this of course is what rhodesia now zimbabwe successfully did
environmental policy should recognise the basic aristotelian wisdom that that which nobody owns nobody will care for
