Protecting Endangered Species with Private Property Rights

Private Ownership and Markets: Protecting Endangered Species with Private Property Rights

Property ownership may be private, communal or government owned. Privately owned properties are usually owned by individuals who bear authority over them. The rights regarding the ownership of such properties fall into four categories, the right to utilize the property, right to produce revenue from the property, right to allocate the property to other people, and the right to apply these property rights (Klein & Robinson, 2011). Accordingly, this paper looks at how these rights affect scarcity besides finding out two folds of incentives on private property rights, protection of rhino, and a threat to rhino, which is an endangered species.

How Private Property Rights Affect Scarcity

The world today faces an environmental threat with many wild animals species being driven to the verge of extinction. Most of the endangered species are used by human beings as a source of income. This trend is adopted without much care of what is happening to the species. A good example is rhino, which is killed for its horns. The horns are then sold for ornamental and medicinal purposes. Wild animals are a natural resource, which is affected by scarcity just like energy and time, and economists need to find a solution.

According to Gwartney et al. (2014), scarcity occurs when the need for a resource surpasses its natural availability. Consequently, cutbacks are introduced so that the resource is available in the future. This could be the reason that the rhinos are put under private ownership to curb the problem. However, there is no guarantee that private property rights have the ability to control the problem of scarcity. The matter can become worse where the species is under private property ownership because the owner has the right to generate income from the possession. Human beings have to satisfy their needs and the best way would be to use their assets to meet the needs. The availability of demand for their possession and the fact that they have the right to earn income from their assets spells doom to the resource. Individuals can easily consider their immediate needs without much thought of what will happen to others and to the future. Rhinos are a resource that is valuable to all people but in the U.S, its cost and benefits differ from state to state, hence different limits of property rights. Some states may put little value on the wildlife, which then makes over-exploitation a possibility.

Different perspectives regarding wildlife protection result in policies that contradict and individuals, communities, states, and global participants hence conflicting efforts. In this kind of a situation, scarcity of wildlife is imminent. Therefore, limits have to be clearly stated especially to private owners otherwise they can really make the scarcity worse. In addition, all bodies that strive to find the solution to scarcity ought to work together so that they do not come up with guidelines that conflict.

Protecting Rhino Species through Private Property Rights Incentives

Private property rights can significantly contribute to the protection of the endangered rhino. First, rhinos in the wild wander freely without the knowledge of where the boundaries lie between the wild land, which is set apart by the state for their living, and private owned land where individuals carry on their economic activities. Their innate instincts guide them in the vast territory on where to find pastures and water. Sometimes these territories extend to private land, which mostly supports the biodiversity they thrive in. Bearing this in mind, it is important to educate private landowners especially those who have parcels of land near the rhino habitats on the importance of protecting these species. Though many individuals can view this as a threat to their property, having the right education can make them to be enthusiastic about protecting the rhino. With the awareness of the benefits that conservation of rhinos bring, private landowners can improve the survival of the rhino species.