WHITE RIVER – “We need two key ingredients in the fight against rhino poaching. They are passion and enthusiasm.” Dr John Hanks, the guest speaker at the Wildlife Environmental Society of South Africa’s (Wessa) Lowveld annual auction, delivered an insightful message at the event where more than R50 000 was raised for the war on rhino poaching.
Hanks gave an overview of his book, Operation Lock & The War on Rhino Poaching. His story starts in 1961 when he read the Mirror newspaper’s headline: “DOOMED,” on October 9. The article highlighted species that could become extinct. Black rhinos were one of them. He was set on becoming a conservationist and travelled to Kenya in 1962 for a gap year, where he became involved in the plight of Africa’s animals.
By 1987 he had become the World Wildlife Foundation’s (WWF) head in Africa. The foundation’s founder, Prince Bernhard of the Netherlands, met with Hanks to discuss the start of a war on rhino poaching. The result was Operation Lock, a secret initiative funded by the prince and staffed by former Rhodesian Special Air Service operatives.
Their headquarters were in Johannesburg in order to easily reach neighbouring states which were also threatened by poaching. The highest priority was infiltrating the poaching trade to conduct surveillance operations. This entailed game rangers posing as rhino-horn traders in order to entrap buyers and expose the kingpin.
To do this successfully, the SAPS and the government had to be involved to an extent.
The social climate of the country at that time resulted in it becoming a dish that the media devoured, hereby exposing Operation Lock with a host of inaccurate allegations.
Hank and the WWF were accused of using their anti-poaching operation as a mask for maintaining a British influence on South Africa. They were even accused of hunting down ANC members while faking the fight against poaching. This caused the demise of what could have been a highly successful tool in exposing rhino-poaching kingpins.
More than 20 years later, rhinos are on the brink of extinction. Hanks is still a leading international authority on conservation and his plans to curb rhino poaching are explained in his book.
Hanks placed the problem in perspective on Thursday. “People say that we must do more to fight rhino poaching. We must send more rangers into the Kruger National Park. We must spend more money – that’s over and above the R75 million that was spent this year,” he began. But that, according to him, is not a realistic expectation when biodiversity and sustainable development are taken into account. His argument holds that we have a variety of crises to deal with – “on the environmental front, there’s water catchment, pollination species, soil genesis and many other factors that need funding for their preservation. We struggle with poverty, our education is in dire need of funding. We cannot direct all of our funding to a single cause,” he explained.
“We need community-led solutions that generate money to benefit the rhino-poaching plea and the communities themselves.” He presented a solution: strictly facilitated legal trade in horn. “Many people don’t realise that a rhino’s horn can be removed without hurting the animal. Their horns regrow and up to a kilogram’s rhino horn can safely be removed per year.”
He explained that the only horns currently available from South Africa, were illegally obtained. Legalising the trade will mean that the animals won’t be slaughtered for their horns to be removed. Meanwhile, it can be done in accordance with legal prescriptions on breeding grounds.
“The money made by selling these kilograms of rhino horn, can be directed towards our communities, from where some financially strained people get involved in poaching activities due to their economic circumstances.”
He also referred to the costs of stockpile burning that won’t be incurred if the trade is legalised. He argued that trade legalising should form part of a future South Africa where the emphasis is placed on biodiversity and sustainable development.
“We can save our rhinos with passion and enthusiasm,” he said. Hanks believes that young people need to be mentored to understand the problem of rhino poaching, to be able to place it into perspective and to drive sustainable solutions to protect our animals. “They are our future, after all,” he said.
Many locals attended the auction:
