SA losing rhino poaching fight

January 27 2012 at 11:53am
By Deon de Lange

Total of 232 rhino poaching related arrests were made in SA last year – but to date only a handful of criminals have been convicted and sentenced for their role in this multi-billion rand trade.

This emerged from public hearings held in Parliament on Thursday about the rhino poaching scourge sweeping the country.

Between 2000 and 2007, 120 rhinos are known to have been poached for their horns – at an average of 15 per year – according to figures presented by the Department of Environmental Affairs. In 2008, the number of murdered beasts spiked dramatically to 83, rising further to 122 in 2009, 333 in 2010 and peaking at 448 killings last year. And these are just the ones officials know about.

Significantly, 194 (84%) of the people arrested last year were “poachers”, who operate at the bottom level of the rhino horn criminal hierarchy.

These are the foot soldiers of the trade, which the department estimates to be worth about R150 billion a year, making it the third-most lucrative criminal trade in the world after illegal drugs and human trafficking.

These poachers are often drawn from impoverished communities near areas targeted for poaching, particularly in Limpopo and the North West province.

In the next link in the underworld chain – what the department described as “receivers” and “couriers” – 24 arrests were made, followed by 12 “local buyers”, who purchase the horns from poachers, and just two “local exporters”, who arrange for the horns to be taken out of the country.

At the top level, where international buyers and consumers operate and where the assistance of Interpol would be required, not a single arrest has been made, the department revealed.

Several participants at the hearings, hosted by the portfolio committee on water and environmental affairs, urged the government to re-establish the now defunct specialised police units that used to deal with wildlife crimes. These units were abolished in the late 1990s and early 2000s along with various other specialised police units.

DA MP Gareth Morgan criticised the government’s apparent inability to catch the big fish of the illicit horn trade.

“We need to catch some of the big boys here, quite frankly. We’re not going to stop poaching by catching the small guys. There is always going to be another small guy,” he said.

Much was said during the meeting on Thursday about the high demand for rhino horn in Asia, particularly in China, Vietnam and Thailand, and the lack of international agreements through which SA could demand greater domestic policing of the demand side of the trade.

Dr Wilhelm Schack, from Ekowild, urged the government to take the matter up at an international diplomatic level and to explain to those countries that “our rhinos are as precious to us as pandas are to them”.

“We must go and poach their pandas, just to teach them a lesson,” was committee chairman Johnny de Lange’s tongue-in-cheek response. He later also quipped that SA could solve the demand-side problem by dumping vast quantities of Viagra on the Asian market – a reference to the long-held belief that rhino horn has medicinal – and specifically, aphrodisiac – properties.

De Lange impatiently dismissed complaints from national environment affairs officials that their provincial counterparts did not always play ball and that anti-poaching efforts were bedevilled by the fact that conservation was both a national and a provincial competency.

He noted that the constitution made ample provision for the national government to override provinces in cases where, for instance, “national legislation deals with a matter that, to be dealt with effectively, requires uniformity across the nation”.

He explained that national legislation could be used to provide the required uniformity between national and provincial authorities by “establishing norms and standards, frameworks, or national policies.” He urged the DEA to investigate the possibility of amending existing laws or introducing new laws to better co-ordinate conservation and anti-poaching efforts between the different government spheres.

DEA deputy director-general for biodiversity and conservation, Fundisile Mketeni, raised eyebrows when he alleged that some customs officials were hesitant to inspect the contents of cargo leaving customs ports for fear of being sued – a threat he said smugglers were using to some effect.

“If that is true,” De Lange said, “then I shudder to think what kind of port officials we have.”

“No wonder it’s so easy to have so many rhinos killed (and the horns are) just going out of the country. There is no system in place. We need radical and drastic intervention. I mean, we can’t fiddle around with this. It’s not going to help,” he said.

According to Mketeni, the value of the rhino horn trade has now surpassed even illegal arms trafficking. He explained that, in the early 1960s, the local rhino population was on the brink of extinction.

After decades of committed conservation, this population eventually recovered and by 2007 SA accounted for 35% of the black rhino and 93% of the white rhino populations in Africa.

The current SA population stands at approximately 18 800 and 1 900 for white and black rhinos respectively.

“These successes, however, (have been) undermined by the illegal killing of SA’s rhino population and subsequent illegal trade in the horns of these animals,” Mketeni warned.

The parliamentary hearings are scheduled to resume on Friday.