Joe Doakes from Como Park emails:

President Trump’s administration will allow importing elephant trophies, reversing an Obama era ban.
Trump’s policy is correct. If it’s an elephant owned by a tribe who raised it to be shot in a trophy hunt and who get the proceeds (and meat), then there’s nothing wrong with allowing the import. Poached elephants, obviously not. This is not an elephant issue — there’s nothing inherently bad about elephants — it’s a documentation issue, removing the incentive to poach while retaining the power to license hunts.

It’s similar to the Gibson guitar fiasco. President Obama’s Justice Department raided the guitar maker’s factory and seized $1 million of imported ebony and rosewood which it claimed was protected under the laws of other nations and therefore banned for import into the United States. But there’s nothing inherently evil about rosewood. It’s a paperwork issue: import from this country, you’re okay; import from that country, you’re not. Remember “conflict diamonds?” Same deal.

A blanket ban on importing all rosewood, diamonds and elephant trophies harms the economies where those products are legally produced. We can be smarter than that.

Joe Doakes

Government isn’t great at “reasoning”.