SA’s rhinos have a fighting chance
April 5th, 2012It’s devastating to know that at this rate South Africa will lose about 600 rhinos to poachers this year, and hard not to feel very despondent, but the past two days have given me more hope than I have felt in a long time.
Sure, it was a media tour meant to impress (which it did), but it is hard to consistently fake dedication. That is what I saw: dedication.
I am not sure I am as optimistic as some, although I would like to believe SANParks wildlife veterinary services head Markus Hofmeyr that we are “not at the point of no return (and) can still see a turnaround in South Africa”.
The consequences of not seeing that turnaround are very, very sad – Dr Hofmeyr says we’ll see species decline by 2016 if the rate of escalation in rhino poaching does not abate; if that happens, says his boss, SANParks CEO David Mabunda, there won’t be rhinos in the wild in South Africa by 2050.
If there is anything I learned these past two days, during which members of the media were taken to the Kruger National Park and shown how rhino-poaching crime scenes are “processed”, the fence that runs along the border with Mozambique and the “buffer zone” that is being established in that country (among other things), it is this: we have a fighting chance.
Water and Environmental Affairs Minister Edna Molewa believes we can win this thing; so does Ken Maggs, head of the SANParks wildlife crime investigation unit .
“We have no option,” he says. He’s right. The consequences of not winning this war are infinitely sad.
Standing at the site of the latest rhino poaching in the Kruger park, which has lost 95 rhinos to poachers this year, Mr Maggs told the gathered media “there is nothing more effective (against poaching) than a well-equipped, well-trained, dedicated game ranger”.
The men who are out there patrolling our parks are spending up to two weeks out in the bush, enduring temperatures above 40 degrees Celsius and down to 0 degrees Celsius, wind, rain, dangers from predators and snakes, and emotional stress.
“Rangers get notes on the carcasses (of poached rhinos) saying, ‘We know where you live, where your kids go to school,’” says SANParks spokesman Rey Thakhuli.
Despite this, men like Bruce Leslie and his team, introduced to the media only as Freddie, Robert and Edward because they do intelligence-gathering work in communities close to the park, go out into the bush to track, trace and arrest poachers.
When the media met them they were gearing up for the full-moon period, when poachers use the moonlight to aid them in their search for rhinos. They are to be commended as heroes.
The poachers are simply the footsoldiers in an organised crime industry driven by East Asian demand for rhino horn. Mr Maggs separates the industry into five levels: the poachers, their recruiters who can “run” several groups of poachers, those who trade in the horn in South Africa’s larger commercial centres, and those who operate at national level, selling horn on to the fifth level – the international consumers or buyers.
To win the war, South Africa must attack rhino poaching at all levels. We are.
“The day I wake up feeling like that (despondent) is the day I should leave … I am just getting more and more determined,” says Mr Maggs.
Strength to his arm.