If I were living in abject poverty and someone told me that if I killed an animal and sawed off it's horn they'd get me $300,000 I would probably murder that animal.
I view poaching as a poverty issue. Poachers are largely in poverty and buyers of animal goods are largely in cultures with major poverty issues. Yes some rich people in those cultures spend outrageous sums of money on items, but I contest that if you eliminate poverty the majority of these issues are also eliminated.
Poachers are not largely in poverty. Poachers are primarily large, well-funded criminal syndicates, although they do (sometimes) use impoverished locals for their hunting ability and knowledge of local conditions.
The boom in trade in rhino horn, elephant ivory, etc. has been largely fueled by increasing incomes in China and elsewhere. It is not the result of poverty.
Think of a fast food place. The people making the most money are the well funded groups running it (the corporations and to a lesser extent the franchise owners). But the day to day operations are only possible by the hoards of workers who would often rather be at a different job but are there because of economic necessity.
Those who benefit the most from poaching are the well funded criminals. But the locals do benefit, the well funded criminals just ensure the locals only benefits as much as needed to ensure they still get their own big payday.
If the locals weren't benefitting at all, it wouldn't end all poaching, but it would have a significant effect. If instead the locals benefitted from stopping poaching, it would have an even greater effect.
Consider the case of control animal hunts where big game hunters pay to hunt the infertile old elephants who are still consuming resources that could otherwise go to the herd. The money spent helps the local economy, including to help pay for protection of the younger fertile elephants, and it helps the herd by culling the older elephants (my understanding is that the older ones interfere with the fertile elephants mating, there could be some benefit to having older herd leaders who are infertile, so it isn't a simple calculation).
Hm. You've made me realize that the high cost of poaching (getting shot on sight) makes poachers less likely to even try to avoid killing the animal. What if we made it "legal" or forgivable to tranq and remove the horn, but kept the massive punishment (jail or shot on sight) for killing animals like this? Would that change the motivations, at least theoretically. (Yes, I admit, it's hard to imagine a poacher having the skills the tranquilize and properly remove a horn without injuring the animal...)
I mean, if we think of the rhinos and horns like a fleecy flock of sheep in a commons, it's like we're telling people who want to shear the sheep that they will be shot on sight. This boosts the price of wool, and encourages people to shoot the sheep and quickly skin it. Otherwise, there is no way to get any wool ever. Seems like there must be a way to encourage a more long-term approach of shearing the sheep and leaving it to produce more wool and more sheep...
This has already been thought of: http://thewildlife.wbur.org/2014/10/15/dehorning-rhinos-a-wh...
It's not the best solution -- rhino horns grow back slowly, poachers don't want to wait around for years with a flock of rhinos, and it makes the rhinos less able to do their thing in the wild.
As mentioned in that article, one big problem is that poachers really don't want to waste their time, and it's hard to tell if the horn is there from afar, so they're likely to kill the animal regardless just so that they don't waste time tracking it down again on their next poaching attempt.
I view poaching as a poverty issue. Poachers are largely in poverty and buyers of animal goods are largely in cultures with major poverty issues. Yes some rich people in those cultures spend outrageous sums of money on items, but I contest that if you eliminate poverty the majority of these issues are also eliminated.