INLSA

One of three rhinos from the Inverdoorn Game Reserve and Safari Lodge, near Ceres, which had their horns poisoned in an attempt to stop poaching.

SAPA and STAFF REPORTERS

Three rhino poachers have been sentenced to 25 years each by the Phalaborwa Regional Court, with SA National Parks saying this was an indication SA was taking more stringent measures to clamp down on the scourge.

The three Mozambicans were found guilty of illegally hunting rhino in the Kruger National Park in July 2010.

SANParks chief executive David Mabunda said the sentence was harsher than in other similar cases.

“This is an indication that, as a country, we are taking more stringent measures in the fight against rhino poaching,” he said.

Aselmo Baloyi, Jawaki Nkuna and Ismael Baloy were also found guilty of possessing an illegal firearm (automatic rifle), possession of a firearm (hunting rifle) and possession of ammunition.

They were caught with two freshly severed horns, an assault rifle, a hunting rifle and an axe.

Mabunda said that last year 232 suspected poachers were arrested, including 26 who died in clashes with the authorities.

Last June two Mozambicans, who were found with rhino horns in the Kruger Park, were sentenced to a combined 16 years in prison by the Nelspruit Magistrate’s Court.

Frans Makamu and Solomon Makhabo were convicted of trespassing, illegal hunting of rhino and unlawful possession of firearms and ammunition, NPA spokesman Mthunzi Mhaga said at the time.

Makamu was sentenced to 11 years and Makhabo to five, with no possibility of suspension.

They were arrested with two others in separate incidents in 2010.

Searl Derman, the owner of the Aquila Private Game Reserve outside Touws River and a key player in the Saving Private Rhino initiative, said: “We’ve been putting a lot of pressure on prosecutors to ask for harsher sentences, so we’re very pleased that it seems to be working.

“We have no doubt that it sends out a very powerful message, and serves as a deterrent.”

His view was echoed by DA environment spokesman Gareth Morgan, who said the sentences ”will act as a suitable deterrent... We need more of these types of sentences”.

The Cape Argus reported recently the devastating rhino poaching onslaught in SA is continuing, with a record 448 killed last year, including 19 black rhinos, a critically endangered species of which fewer than 5 000 remain in the wild.

That is 34 percent more than in 2010, when 333 SA rhinos were killed, and nearly four times the 122 lost in 2009.

Vietnam’s last Javan rhino was killed and dehorned by poachers in October.

SA law enforcement officials made 232 poaching-related arrests last year, and 165 in 2010.

The World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) noted that sentences imposed for rhino crimes had also increased in recent years, with poachers and horn smugglers receiving as long as 16 years in prison. It said the recent upsurge in rhino poaching had been linked to increased demand for rhino horn in Asia, particularly Vietnam where it is a luxury item, used as a post-partying cleanser and a purported cancer cure.

But WWF said there were encouraging signs rhino conservation work was reaping rewards.

Dr Jacques Flamand, head of the group’s Black Rhino Range Expansion Project, said this week SA’s populations of black and white rhino were still growing and their combined annual growth was about 7 percent. Just over 2 percent of the rhino population was being lost through legal hunting and illegal poaching.

Flamand said more gains were possible with increased anti-poaching efforts being made.

Last week Parliament's portfolio committee on environmental affairs held a special public hearing on rhino poaching.

Chairman Johnny de Lange said the committee had received submissions from 40 groups or individuals, with 14 of them asking to elaborate orally at the hearing.

He appealed to them to “please concentrate on the solution side – that’s what we’re really grappling with”.

At the hearing, Fundisile Mketeni, deputy director-general in the department with responsibility for biodiversity and conservation, said that among measures they proposed to reduce poaching were to repair the damaged border fence between Mozambique and the southern half of the Kruger Park – a rhino poaching hot spot.

Although 150 extra rangers had been appointed here, their presence was “like a drop of blood in the ocean”, Mketeni said.

“We need 1 000 people.”

Research has shown a direct link between the dramatic spike in rhino poaching in the past three years and the well-publicised claim – which has no medical veracity – by a Vietnamese cabinet minister in 2008 that consuming rhino horn had helped cure him of cancer.

The DA’s Morgan said recently that SA had to overcome its “internal silo-induced co-ordination failures” and work more closely with other governments, especially Mozambique, to create a dynamic regional crime intelligence network.

“This network should involve the respective departments of environmental affairs, the police, and all specialised units designed to deal with organised crime,” he said.

“Poachers themselves are effectively drug mules – for meagre compensation, they put themselves at risk of death. A lasting solution must therefore tackle the syndicates (not merely arrest poachers). There will always be more poachers; they are the bottom of the food chain that constitutes rhino poaching.”

l South Africans are urged to report illegal rhino activities to 0800 205 005.