Key year in fight to save the rhino

Published Jan 4, 2015

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Johannesburg - South Africa lost a record number of rhinos last year as big animals across Africa were poached relentlessly to meet rising demand for horn and ivory in newly affluent Asian countries, or even to provide meat for fighters in the bush.

From South Sudan, where conservationists say elephants are being slain by government forces and rebels, to South Africa, where more than three rhinos a day are being poached, there is an arc of illegal animal slaughter.

South Africa is the centre of the rhino crisis as it is home to close to 20 000, or more than 90 percent, of the world’s population of the animals.

Government figures for last year show that by mid-November 1 020 had been killed for their horns.

That tops the previous record of 1 004 from 2013 and experts say it will probably hit at least 1 200, an almost fourfold increase over 2010, when 333 were killed.

Pelham Jones, chairman of the Private Rhino Owners Association, told Reuters:

“It is a very safe but sad assumption that we will have exceeded the 1 200 mark in 2014.”

There is legal hunting by permit of rhino, elephant and other big game in South Africa.

But the numbers refer to illegal killings, and trade in rhino horn is prohibited globally.

Rhino horn is coveted in Vietnam and China as an ingredient in traditional medicine.

Conservationists say it fetches up to $65 000 (about R761 000) a kilogram on the street, making it more valuable than gold.

The toll often rises in December, possibly because poaching syndicates want to stock up before the Chinese New Year in February.

Many of the poachers in South Africa come from neighbouring Mozambique, one of the world's poorest countries, where villagers are tempted by quick money.

Poaching centres on the flagship Kruger National Park, which borders Mozambique and is a major tourist draw, making the issue a state priority.

The Department of Environmental Affairs said in November that more than 340 arrests had been made since the beginning of the year.

Rhino horn, which weighs only a few kilograms, is fairly easy to smuggle and its price has spawned a web of routes.

Sixteen members of a syndicate suspected of involvement in the trade were arrested in late 2013 in the Czech Republic.

Final estimates of the numbers of elephants poached across Africa last year will not come out for some time, but conservationists say the number being slain for ivory – valued for decorative purposes in China – is probably exceeding the number being born.

This suggests a “tipping point” for population decline is in prospect for Africa’s 500 000 elephants.

Richard Thomas, spokesman for TRAFFIC, a wildlife trade monitoring network, said this year would be key, “possibly the most significant yet in the battle to save the world's iconic animals. If the resources now being directed at this fail to put a big dent in the poaching figures, we need to find out what went wrong and why and amend our approach.”

At least 20 000 elephants a year were poached in 2011, 2012 and 2013, according to the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species, a UN-linked agency.

Killing elephants and smuggling ivory from their tusks is a trickier business than rhino poaching and selling horn.

Elephants are bigger, warier, and more dangerous, and their tusks can reach lengths of a metre or more.

There have also been allegations of official complicity. In November, Tanzania denied allegations by a campaign group that Chinese officials smuggled out illegal ivory in diplomatic bags during a State visit by President Xi Jinping.

Foreign Minister Bernard Membe acknowledged that Tanzania – where conservationists say 10 000 elephants were killed in 2013 – was among the world’s major sources of smuggled ivory, but denied that the Tanzanian and Chinese governments were involved in any way.

In Africa’s newest state, South Sudan, the onset of the dry season may trigger more poaching in a country where the elephant population has fallen from 80 000 to 2 500 in 40 years, with the animals being killed for ivory or meat. – Ed Stoddard for Reuters

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