What will it be: Hero’s of conservation or a pariah?
Rhino horn stockpiles are worth nothing, but should trade be opened it will be worth a lot of money
SKUKUZA – South Africa holds the rhinos’ future survival in its hands, but will it become a hero of conservation or a pariah?
Maj Gen (ret.) Johan Jooste, who is in charge of law enforcement at South African National Parks (SANParks), confirmed the worst fears. Rhino poaching increased by 5 000 per cent between 2007 and 2013.
SANParks has responded with a military approach.
Yet, echoing the perspectives of many, Jooste admits the rhino-poaching crisis cannot be resolved with militarisation alone. “We need to go revolutionary with our communities,” Jooste says. “We must stop talking about it and start taking action.”
The poaching crisis in the Kruger National Park (KNP) escalated rapidly because the authorities woke up too late to the threat of escalating demand for rhino horn in Vietnam and China.
Today, according to Jooste, the KNP has three incursions daily. Twelve poaching gangs operate inside the park at any one time.
Jooste concludes that you cannot protect the rhinos from within the park, you have to protect them from the outside.
For years, a few speculators and farmers of rhino, no more than 15 individuals, have been collecting horns and rhinos for future trading.
The leader was John Hume, owner of more than 1 000 rhino.
His rhino-horn stock is worth nothing today because trade in it is illegal, but should the trade be opened, his stock would be worth about R3 billion.
Hume and the lobby for rhino-horn trade argue that there would be three benefits from dumping a lot of rhino horn on to the Vietnamese and Chinese markets:
• First, a huge influx of supply would depress prices and reduce the incentive for poachers.
• Second, the legal market would outcompete the illegal market and will bankrupt criminal cartels.
• Third, the funds from horn sales could be ploughed back into rhino conservation, resulting in greater numbers of rhinos and more horn produced sustainably to satisfy the demand in Asia.
The South African government is leaning towards supporting the pro-trade lobby.
That would go against, for one, the British initiative to address international wildlife crime.
Two things could happen at the CITES Conference of the Parties in September 2016 in Cape Town:
• Either Africa will stand in solidarity with South Africa, the host, and by vote “yes” to rhino-horn trade. Asian, Latin American and island states may be swayed by a strong African wish.
• Or the world will uphold the ban on trade in rhino horn on the basis of data, or because we don’t know what the affect might be and cannot afford to experiment and fail.
If this happens, South Africa may face one of the most spectacular host-country defeats in the history of CITES.
