(Hat-tip: David Kramer)
Daniel Hannan, addressing the European Parliament (emphasis added):
“Mr President, let me tell you the story of two African countries. In 1978 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 1979 – 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.”
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