The rhino poaching war is well and truly declared. Our forces are being galvanised, even though the enemy is elusive, well-armed and lucratively financed.
It all hit home the other day when I met with our newly appointed Anti Rhino Poaching Co-Ordinator, Cedric Coetzee.
Like some Commander-in-Chief, he laid it on the line: ‘Dr Mkhize, we have entered ‘Operation Lockdown’!’
Coetzee was in no mood for messing around.
Six weeks into the job he’s moved quickly.
He presented me with pie-charts, organograms, graphs and drawn arrows slicing across newly laid plans.
He’s travelled to Kruger Park to meet the top guns up there to find ways of synergising their efforts with our own.
Today he presented a report to me titled ‘Joint Operations: KZN Anti-Rhino Poaching’.
I leant over and perused the battlefield.
‘Essentially, Dr Mkhize, Ezemvelo KZN Wildlife is for the first time integrating our own efforts with the expertise and resources of private law enforcement agencies.
‘I am instituting a Joint Operations Command including ourselves, the SAPS, our Project Rhino stakeholders and the SANDF.
‘Like never before, I aim to succeed in disrupting and disturbing rhino poaching syndicate members and operations.’
His presentation was invigorating.
Let me detail some of the main components because you will see in ‘Operation Lockdown’ how broad yet strategic our fighting plans have become.
Projects
It’s broken down into separate but complementary projects: ‘Project Border Security’ where members of the SANDF have returned to patrolling our Mozambique border; ‘Project Intelligence’ where we are busy setting up a formal intelligence network for successful arrests; ‘Project Civil Action’, the setting up of a special legal team to investigate and interrogate key suspects in terms of SARS (revenue service) immigration and other legal routes, and even ‘Project Sangoma’, identifying key rhino poaching role players and conducting special investigations to disrupt poaching networks and their operational capability.
Coetzee wasn’t finished.
He spoke of an Operations Commander and a Field Operations Co-Ordinator.
For the first time, he said, select representatives of the SAPS attended our recent Project Rhino meeting; for the first time in six months our Rhino Task Team comprising ourselves, SAPS and forensic experts met up; that select road blocks are now taking place in Zululand etc.
He reminded me that the backdrop to this meeting was grave – South Africa has lost 618 rhinos so far this year.
By the end of last year we had lost 668.
KZN has lost 62 rhinos so far this year, way above the 40 we had lost at the roughly equivalent time last year.
Ezemvelo’s renewed intelligence outreach has identified about 16 poaching syndicates operating in KZN.
Many feed off informers, including sangoma’s (traditional healers), drivers, the shooters themselves and even our own staff.
And it’s all been fast-tracked to cope with this most threatening time.
He showed me a graph illustrating the high risk periods for rhino poaching.
These months of September, October and November are almost upon us.
Investment
After he left I thought of what we have already put in place.
I have invested nearly R3-million into providing drones into both our Hluhluwe iMfolozi Park (HiP) and more recently expanding this into Tembe.
We have established Project ‘Zap Wing’, where a small fleet of aircraft (fixed-wing and helicopters) fly over both private and state reserves holding rhino.
Of course, we have established our 400 Rhino Ambassadors who patrol our communities living nearby our protected areas, in HiP, Ndumo and Tembe.
We have raised almost R60-million from our provincial government to help fight this war. We have provided night vision equipment and identified the need for new Anti Poaching Units (APU’s) – more feet on the ground.
And by the time this column appears, you will have read about our latest venture; the infusion of toxins (poison) and dye into the horn of all our rhino populations at Tembe Elephant Park and Ndumo Game Reserve.
Nothing is guaranteed but the inventors of this practice (Rhino Rescue Project) have tried this out in small, private reserves in the North West Province and Limpopo over the past two years.
Reports state that poaching has dropped very significantly.
As I drove home that night one thing appeared to underscore Coetzee’s presentation to me: partnerships.
It is the most fundamental maxim in conservation.
We don’t – and can’t – act alone.
For conservation to succeed we need to join hands with other willing partners.
For example, our rhino infusion strategy is largely thanks to our partners the Peace Park Foundation which has agreed to finance this project.
I thought of our country. If we can reach across all the divides and understand how strong we can become if we seek a common goal, then I know we will succeed.
The passion and dedication being shown by Ezemvelo’s own staff as well as private rhino owners in helping pull all parties into helping combat this war holds great hope.
Wherever you are, think of what you can do, too.
Let’s save this wonderful beast!
