Cross-Border Poaching KNP - Mozambique

[Richprins]

Absolutely brilliant!

Klippies!

[Lisbeth]

Hopefully we will see positive results in a relatively short time. They have waited far too long, but I suppose that Mozambique was not ready earlier.

[Flutterby]

[Klipspringer]

https://globalinitiative.net/wp-content ... o-logo.pdf

RISK BULLETIN • ISSUE 1 • OCTOBER 2019

Recent arrests and trials in Mozambique raise hopes in the fight against rhino poaching, but the poaching figures are hard to make sense of.

Mozambique has long been recognized as a hub for
rhino poaching syndicates that operate from the
country while targeting South Africa’s rhino population.
According to reporting from the International Union
for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) rhino specialist
group to the Convention on International Trade in
Endangered Species (CITES) conference of parties in
2019, Mozambique is a major transit state for illegal rhino
horn and, in terms of the amount of horn entering the
illegal market, the country is second only to South Africa.
This is despite Mozambique’s native rhino population
being comparatively small: there are around 30 animals,
according to recent government estimates compared to
South Africa’s several thousand.
On 30 September 2019, a spokesperson for the
Mozambican police service announced that Lucílio
Matsinhe, son of a popular Mozambican war veteran
during the struggle for the country’s liberation against
Portuguese colonialism, was arrested in the capital,
Maputo, in possession of rhino horns. The spokesman said
that their data showed Matsinhe was a ‘repeat offender’ in
wildlife trafficking and the forgery of precious stones.23
The arrest was initially met with shock and surprise in
Maputo and by conservationists, as the arrest of rhino
traffickers, particularly those with connections in powerful
political circles, is rare in Mozambique. However, on
8 October, Carlos Lopes, representative of the National
Administration for the Conservation Areas (ANAC),
reported that the two horns found with Matsinhe were
false. Lopes said that they had been made with acrylic
material, goat skin and a beer bottle.
As more details surrounding the Matsinhe case remain
to be released, other cases have also emerged in recent
months. On 22 August, the Maputo City Court sentenced
a Chinese citizen, Pu Chiunjiang, to 15 years’ imprisonment
for trafficking rhino horns; he also received a fine.
According to ANAC representatives, this is the first case
of a foreign national being jailed in Mozambique for wildlife
crime. Chiunjiang was arrested at Maputo airport in
possession of 4.2 kilograms of rhino horn. There have been
several similar previous arrests of Chinese and Vietnamese
nationals, but none have come to trial.24
There have also been arrests of Mozambicans in South
Africa. In September 2019, two Mozambican citizens,
Orlando Matuassa and Tomás Maluleque, were sentenced
for 16 and 17 years, respectively, for poaching two rhinos
in Limpopo National Park in Mozambique, which connects
to South Africa’s Kruger National Park.25 In April, two
Mozambican citizens (a father and son) were detained
in South Africa. They had been found in possession of
two rhino horns between Belfast and Wonderfontein, in
Mpumalanga Province.
Nevertheless, reports suggest that poaching incidents in
Mozambique and South Africa by Mozambican networks
are in decline. According to one former poacher and
current member of the Mozambican Border Guard,
poaching activities are still occurring but in lower
intensity: ‘The situation now is stable. We have notified
very few cases of rhino poaching this year … these few
cases are taking place in the small private parks and
safaris in South Africa. The poachers are coming from
Magude district [about 120 km from Maputo] and
Massingir district, Gaza Province [about 300 km from
Maputo].’ These areas neighbour South Africa.
However, interpreting reported rates of rhino poaching
in both Mozambique and South Africa presents some
difficulties. According to the IUCN rhino specialist group,
annual poaching levels in Mozambique have decreased
since 2014, when 19 animals were killed, to 13 in 2015;
five in 2016; four in 2017; and there had been only one
case up to July 2018 (see Figure 4).
26 Reporting from the
PoachTracker project – an initiative of environmental
journalism group Oxpeckers, which draws on official, media
and crowdsourced data to collect information on poaching
in South Africa – suggests that poaching in South Africa has
experienced a similar decline (see Figure 5).
There are debates about how to interpret this decline:
while the South African Ministry of Environment readily
claims the fi gures as a testament to the success of state
anti-poaching initiatives, some conservationists have
argued that, as extensive poaching in recent years has
decimated the rhino population, there are simply fewer
rhinos available to poach. According to environmental
journalist and editor of Oxpeckers, Fiona Macleod, ‘while it
is true there is a smaller population, it may well also be the
case that the remaining rhinos are in fact better protected’.
How the reported decline in rhino poaching in both
South Africa and Mozambique is interpreted, how this
data should be interrogated, and if the recent arrests of
poaching fi gures indicate a real swing by the Mozambican
authorities to combat the issue, all remain open questions.
Uncritical acceptance of a seemingly positive shift risks
complacency in a context where little is being done to
alleviate the drivers of poaching.

[Richprins]

Klippies!

Fiona is an absolute star and can be trusted implicitly.

[Peter Betts]

Why is Massinger Village still on the Map ...It should be a huge hole in the ground