"Rhino horns are a renewable resource." Would a legal market help save endangered rhinoceroses?

 Right now it is illegal to buy or cell rhino horn, to protect endangered rhinoceroses from poachers who kill them.  But could a legal, tightly regulated market work better? It's controversial...

From Science:

Protect white rhinos by legalizing horn trade  by Martin Wikelsk  Science
10 Oct 2024, Vol 386, Issue 6718, p. 157, DOI: 10.1126/science.adq5925

 "Rhino horn is a renewable resource that grows like fingernails. To protect white rhino populations effectively, the international trade of rhino horn should be legalized and carefully monitored, including the tracking of each sample sold. Legal trade—the preferred option of horn consumers (3)—will derail international trafficking syndicates and enable essential private rhino guardianship. Legalized trade provides the best chance for the future of white rhino populations ."

 

 

And here's a companion story from the Guardian:

‘We have to change our attitude’: wildlife expert says rhino horn trade must be legalised
Call for illicit market to be taken out of hands of criminals as numbers continue to fall drastically due to poaching  by Robin McKie 

"International trade in rhino horns should be legalised, a leading wildlife expert has urged.

...

“A few years ago, I was very much against this idea but now looking at the grim situation we are in I believe we have to change our attitude to the issue of trade in rhino horn,” said Wikelski, of the Max Planck Institute of Animal Behaviour in Germany.

“International crime syndicates have overcome every countermeasure that conservationists have mounted to defend rhinos from poachers. The result has been a drastic drop in numbers of animals. By legalising trade in rhino horn we can take back control of the market and halt the loss.” 

"Wikelski’s idea would be to remove the horn and allow a new one to grow while selling the horn to make money. This could be used to fund protection for the rhino. At present, removed horn is stored in secure vaults.

"However, the proposal to use stocks to create a legitimate trade in rhino horn has triggered worried responses from many conservationists, who reject the idea that such a scheme would save the rhino from the attention of poachers. 

...

“In addition, a legal rhino horn market could increase demand, provide opportunities for money laundering, and complicate law enforcement’s ability to distinguish legal sources from illegal sources,” Rascha Nuijten, director of Future For Nature Foundation, wrote in a response to Wikelski’s arguments that was also published in Science."