NPOs shocked by Concourt decision

THE Constitutional Court’s decision yesterday against the Department of Environmental Affairs has left many advocacy organisation’s ‘shocked’. That’s according to local, Mariana Fernandes. Fernandes is a core strategist for global non-profit organisation, Global March For Elephants and Rhinos.

Speaking to the Northglen News this morning after the events of Wednesday, Fernandes said that the NPO was still reeling from the court’s decision. The highest court in the land, struck down an application by the government to have a moratorium banning the domestic trade of rhino horn kept in place. Court documents reportedly said the Concourt’s dismissal was because the department’s case ‘lacks reasonable prospects of success’.

Glenashley resident, Fernandes said that legalisation of the rhino horn trade would have the reverse intended effect, and open the flood-gates to poachers. “This is bad news. We are concerned that because there is corruption in the country, who will regulate the rhino horn being traded once it crosses our borders and heads to the Far East?” said Fernandes.

In a statement,  Edna Molewa, the Minister of Environmental Affairs  said despite the ruling they had ‘strengthened laws, regulations and systems to ensure no regulatory loopholes exist with regards to the possession of rhino horn as well as a possible future domestic trade in rhino horn’.

Fernandes went on to say that despite a legal domestic trade, rhino horn, which is one of the most valued commodities on the black market, will become something like diamonds, where there remains a voracious and widespread appetite for illegally-obtained stones. She also said she is worried that the term, ‘canned rhino’ will come into common use. She fears that the already fragile wild rhino population will significantly decline as the animal will be increasingly  bred in captivity.