![]() “The wild trade continues right alongside.” “There’s very little, if any, relief on wild populations when we see commercial farming develop or commercial trade of a protected species,” says Douglas Hendrie, manager of the wildlife crime and investigations unit for conservation group Education for Nature - Vietnam. While she’s aware that people buy rhino horn jewelry, Watts has never heard of rhino horn cell phone cases and chopsticks.īut opposition to Pembient’s synthetic horn plans extends beyond the possible new market it could create. “I frankly don’t see that it’s any better, to be honest,” says Susie Watts, a consultant for WildAid and co-chair of the Species Survival Network Rhino Working Group, referring to Pembient’s move to put faux powder on the back burner. The carving process and the durable goods market seems very interesting to us because it’s been around for such a long time and it’s something that people maybe understand a little bit better.” He also thinks that intact horn is “what the market really desires” because it’s the “ultimate marker of authenticity.”Ī recent trip to Vietnam helped influence Markus’s decision to jump straight to “carvables,” the scraps of which he says he learned end up in the medicinal market anyway. “These are entirely new uses of rhino horn that will reach an entirely new audience,” Cathy Dean, the international director of Save the Rhino, told World Finance in September.įor now, the company is shifting its emphasis away from synthetic powder because, as Markus says, “we’ve gotten a lot of pushback. They say that rhino horn powder-infused products could open more markets for illicit horn. ![]() Some mistakenly believe that it can heal everything from hangovers to cancer.īut many conservationists attacked Pembient’s idea, asserting that fake rhino horn won’t solve the poaching problem and could even make it worse. The items would have been marketed to East Asian consumers, who tout rhino horn as a status symbol and a sign of strength. Several companies were interested in buying the powder to mix with beer and skin cream, among other things. Unauthorized use is prohibited.Īt first the company planned to focus on selling synthetic rhino horn powder before offering larger products. By isolating the gene for rhino keratin, the chief ingredient in wild horn (and in human hair and fingernails), Pembient says it’s managed to 3-D print genetically identical knock offs. Pembient emerged on the startup scene in January, when biotech incubator IndieBio decided to fund the venture and offer it a spot in its inaugural class. (That’s after a rumor that rhino horn had cured a Vietnamese politician’s cancer, and demand in the country skyrocketed.) Last year, they slaughtered a record 1,200 in South Africa-home to most of the world’s rhinos-and have wiped away an increasing number of them in the country each year since 2008. ![]() Poachers have targeted rhinos in recent years at unprecedented rates. Prices for the real thing would fall, goes the argument, curbing the economic incentive for poachers-and helping save rhinos in Africa. ![]() Pembient hopes synthetic horn-priced at about one-eighth that of the reported $60,000-a-kilogram that genuine horn commands-will flood the market. Then the merchandise will be sold in China and Vietnam, where demand for rhino horn fuels rampant rhino poaching in Africa. The company, Pembient, plans to bioengineer fake rhino horn that artists could carve into lifestyle items such as jewelry, libation cups, and chopsticks, according to CEO Matthew Markus. Fake rhino horn cell phone cases coming to a store near you? It may sound strange, but that’s what one San Francisco-based startup has in mind-and it thinks such products can save the animals. ![]()
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