There needs to be some international treaty which declares poachers to be subhuman, such that they can be hunted for sport, without prosecution for murder: immunity in the country where the hunting takes place, as well as immunity back home, or in any state which is a signatory to the treaty.
After that, to be a poacher will mean taking a tremendous risk: simultaneously becoming not only hunter, but hunted.
Hunted by a group of psychopaths who appear wherever poachers appear, anywhere in the world, to take advantage of the treaty.
And, of course, many of those psychopaths will be none other than ... competing poachers. All traces of cooperation among poachers will be gone, replaced by paranoid mistrust of the purest kind.
A poacher won't even be able to sell an elephant tusk to anyone without fear. If you're approached by someone offering a tusk, he can be defined by the treaty as a poacher, which means you can legally kill him and take the tusk (and the same risk upon yourself as you try to do with that tusk what he just did).
Sounds good in theory but in practice this would turn out to be terrible.
How do you even define a poacher ? Maybe they start using intermediaries.
They use anonymous locations as a way to sell the horns ?
Maybe once their buyer appears on site to take the horn, they take a picture and shot the buyer calling him the "poacher" to collect the poacher money and resale the horn ?
Allowing legal murder of humans should only be instituted by the state and not be individuals, even the state screws up the process and individuals are much less trustworthy.
The poaching problem requires both attack from supply side and demand side using various soft techniques. The only reason the horns are important is due to its social value.
We do not have poaching problems with ants,spiders,monkeys,etc. because killing and the keeping their body parts has little social value to humans and there exists a strong penalty if you have a dead monkey in your house !
Quite trivially. First, precisely identify certain geographic areas (habitats of endangered animals subject to poaching). Then, anyone in those areas with any sort of equipment for poaching (guns, traps, whatever) is by definition a poacher. To make it simple, a poacher killer, if armed, is also defined as a poacher while inside one of these areas. "Inside" also includes air space, which extends 30,000 feet above ground, and three miles beyond the border of the area. Anyone who would be a considered a poacher if standing in the area is also a poacher if in the air space. All passengers and crew of the craft are considered poachers if any one of them satisfies the definition.
After that, to be a poacher will mean taking a tremendous risk: simultaneously becoming not only hunter, but hunted. Hunted by a group of psychopaths who appear wherever poachers appear, anywhere in the world, to take advantage of the treaty.
And, of course, many of those psychopaths will be none other than ... competing poachers. All traces of cooperation among poachers will be gone, replaced by paranoid mistrust of the purest kind.
A poacher won't even be able to sell an elephant tusk to anyone without fear. If you're approached by someone offering a tusk, he can be defined by the treaty as a poacher, which means you can legally kill him and take the tusk (and the same risk upon yourself as you try to do with that tusk what he just did).