Michael - Thursday
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For the
last few years, several start up biotechnology companies have been looking into
the viability of making artificial rhino horn.
In recent years a company named Pembient has been making the
running. Its CEO, Matthew Marcus, has
impressive credentials and the drive to make things happen. Both their technology and their business
model have evolved over the last couple of years.
What’s the
point? Matthew says the company is
committed to saving the rhino by replacing the demand for real rhino horn – all
taken from poached rhinos since there’s no legal market – with the artificial
substitute. His plan is to sell the
product at around one eighth of the black market price in consumer countries –
mainly Vietnam and China – thereby driving the price down to levels where
poaching is no longer sufficiently lucrative to be viable against the
conservation resources arrayed against it.
At the same time he hopes to make money for the company and possibly
expand into other ‘replacement’ wildlife products such as ivory.
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| Two chunks of artificial horn |
Here’s how
it works. Rhino horn is basically
keratin as is hair and wool. Their
initial process used sheep’s wool to grow a look-alike horn material, which is
indistinguishable from the real thing at a microscopic and even DNA level. The latest technology uses yeasts coded with
rhino DNA and keratin itself to provide an “ink” that a 3D printer can then
convert into an actual horn in shape and color.
Not only is this the most valuable type of horn for medicinal products - because the consumer can actually see that it’s the real thing, but it can also
be used for carvings and bracelets which are becoming popular with a well-heeled
set in the east. In December National Geographic reported on it.
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| The horn from wool process |
I’ve worked
on some of the dynamics describing what is happening to the white rhino
population in South Africa and it’s not a happy story. The Kruger National Park – the largest
resource of rhinos left in the world - loses upwards of three rhinos per day, and surrounding private game
reserves contribute to that also despite their smaller and more controllable
area and generally better resources.
Poachers can sell a single horn for around US$15,000 and that's a huge
amount of money in South Africa, about ten times what people living in these
areas can make in a year. That leaves a
lot of money to buy information and accomplices and still have a very fat wallet. With those sorts of
stakes, the poaching will go on and as poachers are arrested or shot, others
will take their places. Some pessimistic
predictions suggest that this year we may lose enough rhinos to cause the total
population to start declining. At that
point the white rhino is heading for extinction.
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| The real thing for sale |
So one
would imagine that conservationists are delighted with the Pembient initiative. Not so fast.
I said their business models had been changing and there’s a reason for
that. Some of the earlier ones seemed
designed to actually increase the market.
One was a joint venture with a Chinese brewer to add artificial rhino
horn to a line of beer. (The horn is
supposed to help with hangovers.)
Although it was going to be specified on the bottle that the horn was
artificial, the concern is that it would reinforce the belief in the medicinal
properties. There was to be a similar
face cream. None of this went down well
with the international NGOs working to save the rhino!
A summary of their arguments against the sale of artificial rhino horn is:
·
There
is no evidence that the artificial horn will replace the real thing and it may just
expand the market by making it affordable to a wider group of consumers;
·
It
may reinforce the myths of the efficacy of the material;
·
Marketers
will demand a premium for real wild horn, just as De Beers does for real
diamonds over the synthetics;
·
How
will law enforcement officers distinguish between them?
In February
a petition was presented to the US Fish and Wildlife Service requesting the ban
of the sale of artificial horn. As far
as I can discover, there hasn’t been a response to that as yet.
Pembient
has reacted to all these arguments, and has moved its business model to the
sale of complete horns from their 3D printer for carving purposes. Of course, once the artificial horns are delivered, they can be used for anything.
It’s a
complex issue and I don’t know the answer.
I can say that I think the present anti-poaching effort isn’t going to
stem the tide. Apparently the publicity
campaigns in China have reduced the percentage of people who believe in the
value of rhino horn as a medicine to below 50%.
Changing anyone’s mind about anything is pretty hard, so that’s a big
achievement. But 50% of China is still a lot of
people...
