The burning of ivory is intended to be a signal to poachers that the slaughter of endangered elephants must stop. In this photograph, "Some five tons of African ivory seized from Singapore is destroyed to keep it from further trade." However, for those who don't get caught, the destruction only drives up prices. When a single kill pays three times your country's per-capita income, seeing the competition in flames is hardly an incentive to enter a different line of work. Rather, it's flaming evidence that your supply curve is shifting up.
The poachers and traffickers who benefit thus don't even have to pick up the bill: the environmentally conscious spend a huge amount of money to enact government regulations that seem to protect the nature they love. Society could benefit from eliminating, or limiting the negative externalities of many harmful industries. However, Stigler's theory of regulation shows that regulation may not be the best tool for the job.
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