Botswana – From burning the billion-rand stickpile of rhino horn to sending military special forces into Mozambique to battle criminal syndicates and turning rhino poachers into farmers, it seems everyone had their own solution to saving South Africa’s rhinos from extinction.
Crammed into a small, dark room in Boksburg, where most of those present were clad in khaki, pro-trade advocates and their anti-trade counterparts shredded each other’s arguments in an often-fractured debate about whether South Africa should petition international conservation authorities to reopen the controversial trade in rhino horn.
They were among the rhino owners, economists, government representatives, and members of conservation and animal welfare organisations who attended the three-day workshop hosted by the Department of Environmental Affairs on the feasibility of trade in rhino horn.
If the 21-member committee – which has drawn criticism for being weighted towards the pro-trade argument – gives the go-ahead to trade, the government could table a formal proposal at next year’s meeting in South Africa of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (Cites). For the proposal to be adopted, two thirds of Cites delegates would need to vote in favour of it.
Anti-trade advocates, such as the Born Free Foundation, said any proposal that might be put to the next Cites meeting was highly unlikely to succeed, “which will be a huge political embarrassment for South Africa on home turf”.
Outraged South Africans Against Poaching argued that “South Africa is being duped and manipulated by China”, a leading consumer of rhino horn.
“The price we will pay is the extinction of our rhinos, just to satisfy the greed of a few individuals in South Africa and China.”
The group noted that there were there were more tiger farms than there are tigers in the wild in China.
South Africa has been here before. In 2012, the department hosted several rhino round-table discussions, with its rhino issue manager, Dr Mavuso Msimang, ultimately urging the government to consider reopening trade.
In this latest round of discussions, private rhino owners said they received no funding or compensation for the loss of rhino. “There is no tax relief or compensation for us,” Derick Fick lamented. “If we legalise the trade, we will be able to finance our operations.”
Rhino farming could involve communities who could be “educated about this natural asset”, but who were often ignored in conservation. “We can even turn poachers into custodians. That’s maybe the way we should be thinking,” Fick said.
John Hume, a controversial rhino farmer, argued that legal trade would offer a supply of horn “without taking rhino or human life”. He said that since the launch of his breeding operation in the North West, 518 calves had been born to 373 rhino cows.
“Without legalisation, it won’t be possible to continue these breeding operations such as mine without a huge injection of capital from elsewhere.”
Karen Trendler, a wildlife rehabilitation expert who treats orphaned calves, said rhino farming was a wildlife industry with significant welfare and conservation implications that had been allowed to establish itself without controls, restrictions, regulations or standards.
This week’s rhino workshop had considered “nothing about the regulation or control of (this) growing industry”, she stated. “Conserving wildlife in its natural habitat is real conservation.”
Andrew Taylor, of the Endangered Wildlife Trust, said using horn commercially had to be consistent with the aims of conserving biodiversity. An economic model would need to take into account the risks of illegal horn being laundered into a legal trade, as well as corruption and the lack of capacity to enforce compliance.
Adam Welz, the local representative of WildAid, which uses “superstar celebrities” to change buying patterns in wildlife-consuming countries, said there was no silver bullet to end rhino poaching.
Demand reduction campaigns in consumer countries like China and Vietnam could be effective, whereas “trade will send a counter message to consumers”, potentially creating “massive new demand”. “The benefits of (such) trade are unclear at best,” Welz said.
Chris Bean, an anti-trade lobbyist and attorney, told the committee: “Should you manage to change the direction of this ship, then posterity will hail you as heroes.
“If you dither and achieve nothing, then you and the others in the department will be known as the corrupt losers who tried to rearrange the deckchairs on the Titanic.”
Saturday Star