This is simply not true and this 'meme' is really harmful. A legal market would only encourage consumption and serve as a cover for the black market.

I would like to see some evidence on either side of this argument.

I can see that there is logic to both cases. Saying one side is "simply not true" doesn't make your case. Is there any firm evidence either way.

Read the comments in this thread. The current crisis is generally attributed to the 2008 lifting of CITES restrictions that has allowed African countries to sell their stockpiles to China and Japan.

Some of the most convincing evidence comes from American prohibition of alcohol and the drug wars. Basic economic principles dictate that the supply will expand to meet demand. As the demand is difficult to modulate, the strategy of regulating supply has been historically more effective.

The prohibition created a robust black market which all but disappeared when alcohol production came back into the light by legal means. The same logic should hold true for ivory through farming or artificial production (see several comments to this point above).

Do you have a source? I'm extremely skeptical and you didn't make an argument for it.

The current poaching crisis is generally attributed to the lifting of CITES restrictions in 2008 which let some African countries sell their ivory stockpiles to China and Japan. As a result, the consumption has skyrocketed.

The arguments I have heard for a legal market is that the rhino horns can be harvested without killing them, and that the black market trade encourages poachers to simply kill the rhinos to harvest.

Your turn.

What do you do with a Rhino that has no horn? It can't survive in the wild, and it has no economic value to justify keeping it on a farm.

People can come see the Rhinos, like a zoo, while their horns grow back.

http://www.bisbeesconservationfund.org/conservation/savether...

That doesn't stop poaching. It would only make rhinos extinct in the wild.

The goal is to have farmed rhinos out price killing wild rhinos, and you continue making killing wild rhinos illegal.

How do you outprice poachers when raising a rhino costs more than zero but poaching them costs effectively zero?

Poaching isn't effectively free, like many other illegal activities it carries risk of death or capture and imprisonment. By investing in enforcement you can drive up the risk and thus the price.

Source?

One more devastating thing is that whenever police make a ride on poachers and take over some ivory or rhino's horns they will burn them. Which decreases supply and increases black market price for them.

The wisest thing to do would be to give it away for free to anyone interested. That would ruin black market.

It would also condone use of ivory. It would also out the ivory back on the market.

Bad is bad, no matter how small it is. Good is good, no mater how small it is.

It is not about changing the world overnight, it is about moving 1 inch every time.