![]() That Pembient’s horn will come without the contaminants of modern life should actually make it more desirable than the real thing, Markus contends. There is room for better, bio-identical substitutes,” he says. “If people like the product they should be able to enjoy it without harming any animals. Just as there is faux fur, there should be a rhino horn alternative. The current approach – better law enforcement combined with demand-reduction campaigns – isn’t working, he argues and something needs to be done before it is too late. Dean adds that ersatz horn is unlikely to dent the market – if people can afford the real thing they are going to buy it – and rebukes the company for failing properly to consult conservation professionals on the idea first. “There is general horror at the idea,” says Cathy Dean, international director of the UK-based charity Save the Rhino, which earlier this month issued a joint statement with the International Rhino Foundation opposing the synthetic horn. It panders to consumers’ behaviour rather than trying to change it, which could set back efforts to educate, they say. Pembient’s concept, which another company – Rhinoceros Horn LLC – is also pursuing a version of, has raised the hackles of conservation groups from the World Wildlife Foundation to the wildlife monitoring network Traffic. ‘Conservation 2.0’: one of Pembient’s 3D-printed miniature rhino horns. Two of the three Asian species are also classed as critically endangered and number less than 100 animals each. Black rhinos, on the critically endangered list, number just 5,055 and one subspecies is already extinct. Just five northern white rhinos remain, all of which are either too old to reproduce or infertile. Save the Rhino’s most recent figures put the number of southern white rhinos at 20,405. Poachers took an average of three a day in 2014, up from one a month in 2007. In South Africa, which has the largest rhino population of any country, poaching is at an all-time high. It is prized, particularly in Vietnam and China, as a status symbol and for its supposed “medicinal” qualities, unsupported by science, which include preventing hangovers, reducing fever and detoxifying the body following cancer treatment. By weight, its price exceeds that of gold. “Conservation 1.0 is a little antiquated.” As the wealth of the elite in Asian countries has risen, the cost of the horn, along with the frequency of poaching incidents, has increased rapidly. “There is a need to innovate from outside,” says Markus. Rhinos certainly need more help and the desperateness of the situation is inspiring other non-traditional ideas. ![]() “Our goal is that the only way you can tell the difference is that there will be pollutants in the wild horn.” “We are working towards a bio-identical product by reverse-engineering rhino horn down to the smallest degree,” says Markus, who claims his version can be better than the real thing. The mysterious box contains Pembient’s collection of prototypes. The hope is to produce rhino horn so biologically similar to wild horn – but at about one tenth of black market costs – that buyers and illegal traders will switch, thereby curtailing relentlessly increasing poaching levels. It is starting with rhino horn but has plans for more complex materials such as elephant tusk. Markus is the co-founder of Pembient, a startup that aims to thwart the illegal wildlife trade by recreating animal products in the lab. “I term it conservation 2.0,” says Markus. ![]() There are also what looks like miniature horns. Inside it are vials containing powder and small, hard-looking chunks. In a meeting room in an industrial area of San Francisco, Matthew Markus unpacks the contents of a small carved wooden box that depicts a rhinoceros with an impressive horn. ![]()
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