Counter Poaching Efforts

[H. erectus]

a mere fraction of the R2 to R2.5 million value of each horn

The very reasoning of a CITES failure!!!

Those doing the dirty work could not care a hoot about all the
above crap!!

I face this on a daily basis, going to and returning from work!!!
The balustrades of our national highways getting stripped of it's
precious metal !!!

We now drive to/return from work witnessing theft on a daily basis!

Another huge joke in the making!!

[Amoli]

Sabi Sands - you make me happy. Keep it up and I truely hope others will follow.

Make the horn worthless...

[Flutterby]

Yao Ming Says No to Ivory and Rhino Horn

2013-04-16 18:15:29 CRIENGLISH.com Web Editor: Liu Ranran


The "Yao Ming Ivory and Rhino Horn Campaign" was launched at The Westin Beijing Financial Street on April 16 in an effort to heighten conservation awareness in China on the threats to rhinos and elephants.

In partnership with WildAid, the Yao Ming Foundation, Save the Elephants (STE), and African Wildlife Foundation (AWF), former NBA star Yao Ming said he wants to educate the public to reduce the demand for rhino horns and ivory, saying: "When the buying stops, the killing can too."

Speeches on "The status of rhinos and elephants in the world" and "Surveys on rhino horn and ivory demands in China" were given by Kenyan researcher David Daballen of Save the Elephants, Philip Muruthi, senior director of conservation science for the African Wildlife Foundation, and WildAid's Executive Director, Peter Knights.

Footage and stills from Yao's trip to Africa were released at the news conference. In August 2012, Yao spent 12 days on a fact-finding mission in Kenya and South African to film a documentary and write 12 diaries about his Africa journey.

As an international NGO, WildAid's mission is to end the illegal wildlife trade by reducing demand through public awareness campaigns. Headquartered in San Francisco, California, WildAid also has offices in China, India, Cambodia, Galapagos, and London.

[Sprocky]

2013-04-24 13:34

Johannesburg – A US firm recently gave smartphones to some game rangers in South Africa to help them track poachers who kill rhino for their horns.

An anti-poaching ad campaign in Vietnam, a key illegal market, shows rhino with human hands or feet in place of horns, which are made from the same material as fingernails and toenails.

Despite these and other globe-spanning projects to protect the rhinoceros, the rate of poaching in South Africa – home to most of Africa's rhino – this year is on track to exceed the record number of illegal kills in 2012, conservation officials said.

The more money, innovation and publicity go into the cause, the more poachers, who see rhino horn as a high-priced commodity, seemingly diversify their hunt.

"The demand seems to be such that every time there's a clampdown in one area, another issue emerges," said Dr. Jo Shaw, a rhino expert in South Africa for the World Wildlife Fund.

A South African opposition party has urged the government to label rhino poaching as a national disaster, allowing the allocation of disaster management funds to fight poaching. The Democratic Alliance also called for more discussion about legalising the trade in rhino horns, which can grow back after cutting.

Total ban

"A total ban on rhino horn trade will eventually lead to the complete extinction of the species. A regulated and controlled trade would supply demand and dismantle poaching syndicates through open market pressures," opposition lawmaker Anthony Benadie said in a statement.

Some conservationists warn that a legal trade would not necessarily stamp out the illegal one. Besides, it would require the approval of the Convention on the International Trade in Endangered Species, or Cites.

Poachers killed 668 rhino in South Africa in 2012, a 50% increase over the previous year. On 18 April, South Africa said 232 rhino had been illegally killed so far this year, 70% of them in the vast Kruger National Park.

"The patterns keep indicating that it will be over 800" this year, said Shaw of the World Wildlife Fund.

She said the number of white and black rhino in South Africa, 19 000 and 2 000 respectively, is actually rising. By some estimates, however, the populations will reach a "tipping point" in 2016 and then decline if poaching persists.

Albi Modise, spokesperson for South Africa's department of environmental affairs, said the use of gun silencers and other sophisticated equipment by poachers "requires that we up our game as well in terms of anti-poaching activity."

In one success, Shaw said, authorities have stopped Vietnamese and others killing rhino in South Africa under the guise of legal trophy-hunting, and then illegally selling the horns abroad. South Africa regulates limited hunting of rhino, though this practice is coming under increasing scrutiny.

Measures

The poaching crisis has triggered an array of measures whose effectiveness is hotly debated.

The private Sabi Sand game reserve has injected horns of some rhino with a pink dye and chemicals that could sicken a person who ingests rhino horn.

The tactic would be tough to implement in the nearby Kruger Park, where rhino are harder to track in the vast expanse and where rangers sometimes clash with armed poachers from neighboring Mozambique.

Cites is pushing Mozambique to get tougher on poachers, and also urging Vietnam to take steps to curb demand.

Canvas, a Virginia-based technology company, equipped some rangers at the Sabi Sand reserve with smartphones this year.

The devices enable them to swiftly share data and images – for example, footprints, holes cut in fences and animal carcasses – that help them patrol the bush and could eventually serve as courtroom evidence against suspected poachers.

James Quigley, head of Canvas, acknowledged there is a strong financial incentive behind poaching. The price of rhino horn has been compared to the US street value of cocaine, a temptation for criminal syndicates, triggermen from poor villages and some corrupt officials.

Tom Snitch, an American expert in imagery from satellites and drone aircraft, plans to test small drones in a South African game reserve in late May.

He will use satellite imagery and mathematical models to plot flight paths based on predictions of the movements of both rhino and poachers.

"If we see the poachers, we put the drones on top of them and basically vector them in where they can be apprehended," Snitch said.

South Africa has signed an anti-poaching deal with Vietnam, which has pledged more rigorous inspections of cargo, particularly from Africa, at land, air and sea entry points as well as public awareness campaigns.

The World Wildlife Fund and Traffic, a wildlife monitoring network, are launching an ad campaign on social media networks and elsewhere in Vietnam.


- AP

[iNdlovu]

All good endeavors in the long term, but in the meantime our rhino are being murdered at the rate of over 2 per day.

[Toko]

Ad campaign aims to reduce Vietnamese demand for rhino horn

Ha Noi, Viet Nam 18th April, 2013—Vietnamese citizens are being encouraged to stop buying or consuming rhino horn through a series of advertisements developed by WWF and TRAFFIC as part of their campaign against Illegal Wildlife Trade.

The print adverts were conceptualized by Ogilvy & Mather Viet Nam and depict a rhino with human hands or feet in place of its horn. They provide a novel and intriguing visual to communicate to the Vietnamese public that rhino horn is made largely of keratin, the same substance that makes up your finger nails and toe nails.

“Rhino horn is largely made of keratin and will do nothing to treat cancer or help one’s sexual prowess. There are traditional medicines that have proven to be effective for treating a variety of ailments and symptoms and have saved millions of lives. Rhino horn is not one of them,” said TRAFFIC’s Greater Mekong Programme Coordinator, Dr Naomi Doak.

“Widespread lies, myths and rumours are fuelling demand and use of rhino horn.”

A dramatic spike in demand for rhino horn is believed to be driven by myths related to its curative properties in regards to disease and illness, along with renewed interest in other non-traditional medicinal uses such as a treatment for hangovers, as a sexual stimulant and a detoxifier.

Although rhino horn remains in the pages of a number of Traditional Vietnamese Medicine texts, its sale is illegal and it has not been included in the publication of the official pharmacopeia in Viet Nam for a number of years.

“Currently hundreds of rhinos are being poached each year in South Africa, their horns hacked off and smuggled to meet the soaring demand in Asia including Viet Nam, where rhino horn is considered as ‘miracle medicine’, despite a lack of supporting medical evidence. It is high time to stop the poaching crisis and save African rhinos from extinction” said WWF-Vietnam Communications Manager, Ms Nguyen Thuy Quynh.

Illegal wildlife trade has become an issue of global concern that is pushing wildlife populations to the brink of extinction. Rhinos killed by poachers in South Africa have surged from 13 in 2007, to 668 in 2012. Already more than 200 rhinos have been killed in South Africa since the beginning of 2013, with other African and now also Asian countries experiencing a surge in rhino poaching.

”We are seeking support and cooperation from many corporates, businesses, celebrities, universities, international organizations and mass media who all have an important voice in reaching and influencing the community” Ms Nguyen Thuy Quynh said.

The adverts will be displayed through many different communication channels, including mass media such as newspapers, television, in public areas as well as social media platforms like Facebook. In partnership with Mindshare, a global marketing and media network, WWF and TRAFFIC have been able to secure a number of placements including in hundreds of offices and residential buildings, airports, corporate offices and universities throughout Viet Nam.

The public can support and join the campaign by visiting facebook.com/Vietnamwwf and pledging their commitment not to use rhino horn.

In order to help stem the poaching crisis, and to strengthen, elevate and accelerate Viet Nam’s efforts to address the country’s illegal trade in, and consumption of rhino horn, WWF and TRAFFIC have launched a national campaign against the illegal trade of rhino horn. The campaign is seeking better law enforcement, more effective deterrents against traders and sellers and a reduction in demand for rhino horn in Viet Nam.

To learn more about WWF and TRAFFIC’s global campaign against the illegal trade in wildlife, visit http://www.traffic.org/illegal-trade-campaign or panda.org/killthetrade

[Toko]

Rhino’s Dying Breath Signals General’s Return to War

By Franz Wild - May 2, 2013 6:00 PM GMT+0200

As he watched a white rhino take its final breath after poachers broke its back and hacked off its horn, major general Johan Jooste said he realized that South Africa is facing a war to save the endangered species.
It was one of at least 273 slaughtered this year by April 30 as poachers target South Africa, where 90 percent of the world’s rhinos live, for the horns which sell for more than gold by weight in China and Vietnam where they are believed to cure cancer and boost sexual prowess. Most are killed in the Kruger National Park, an area nearly as big as Israel that abuts a porous border with Mozambique easily crossed by poachers wielding assault rifles.

Jooste, 60, was appointed to a new position in December, overseeing a force of 550 soldiers and rangers. His aim is to halt a poaching surge that the government says may result in the deaths of more rhinos than new births by 2016, threatening the animals, which can weigh as much as 4.5 metric tons, with extinction.
“On the planet, this is the last cache,” Jooste said, sitting in his hunter green starched uniform behind a desk decorated with a bayonet and a dark wooden rhino statue at his office in the Kruger Park. “We are fighting an insurgency war.”
On March 30, the day before the rhino was found, five soldiers affiliated to the task force died in a helicopter crash. Six more of the animals were killed in the following days.

Border War
“There’s no way in the world that losing two-plus rhinos a day is sustainable,” Craig Sholley, a vice-president at the Nairobi, Kenya-based African Wildlife Foundation, said in an April 22 phone interview. “We’re getting very close.”
Jooste fought for South Africa during the apartheid era against Angola in the 1980s before becoming a business developer for BAE Systems Plc (BA/). He believes his time fighting on the border of Namibia, which sits between Angola and South Africa, will serve him in his new role of staunching the flow of poachers from Mozambique.
Jooste, who lives in the park, said he keeps fit by running just after daybreak every day to avoid lions and leopards, who mostly hunt in darkness.
Last year 668 rhinos were poached in South Africa, eight times the number in 2008, according to government statistics. Kruger, which has a 350-kilometer (217 mile) border with Mozambique, is where 72 percent of the killings took place.

‘Well Funded’
With gross domestic product per capita of $650 a year, according to the International Monetary Fund, Mozambique is the world’s 20th poorest nation, providing a pool of people willing to risk being shot for a fraction of the spoils from a successful rhino hunt. A 17-year-old Mozambican poacher captured in South Africa said he was given a 12-kilogram (26 pound) sack of corn meal to join a hunting party, according to Jooste.
Rhino horn can sell for as much as $65,000 per kilogram. Gold traded at about $1,467 per ounce as of 3:26 p.m. in London, making it worth $47,170 per kilogram.
“We’re dealing with an organized crime element that is extremely well funded,” Sholley said. “At the moment they’re winning the battle.”
So far this year 13 poachers have been killed and 28 arrested in Kruger, according to information from the park. Eight more were arrested near the park yesterday, National Parks said. The South African Press Association reported that a further two people were arrested with rhino horns in the eastern Mpumalanga province, citing police.

Leopards, Drones
“We are not happy” with Mozambique’s efforts to curb the poaching, Fundisile Mketeni, the deputy director-general in charge of conservation at South Africa’s Department of Environmental Affairs, said in a phone interview. “They should do as we do, by deploying the police and defense forces.”
Mozambique is seeking to implement laws that will make wildlife poaching a crime with heavier sentences than the current offense of damage to property, Minister of Tourism Fernando Sumbana said on a visit to South Africa in March.
Game wardens are now expected to become paramilitary combatants ready to brave predators such as lions and leopards on five-day foot patrols through the savannah, said Jooste. The rangers need to scare off a flow of increasingly well-armed poachers, some of them hardened fighters from Mozambique’s 15- year civil war. In the three days following the Easter Sunday holiday on March 31, Jooste’s corps killed one poacher, injured another and caught a third.
Radar systems and aerial drones that have proved effective in Iraq and along the border between North and South Korea failed to monitor Kruger effectively because of its dense bush, Jooste said. Instead, he wants to install sensors and increase the use of sniffer dogs and air patrols.

‘That’s Bad’
Central to Jooste’s plan is creating a buffer zone in Mozambique, by encouraging private developers to build fenced wildlife parks along the border, creating an incentive for the local population to protect the animals by bringing income and employment to the area. On the South African side of the park private estates, used for game lodges, adjoin Kruger. The Private Granite Suites at the private luxury Londolozi game reserve cost as much as $1,390 per person per night.
Tourism contributed 84.3 billion rand ($9.4 billion) in South Africa last year, according to the government. The industry employs 4.5 percent of all working South Africans. Many tourists come to see the so-called Big Five land mammals: elephants, buffaloes, lions, leopards and rhinos.
White and black rhinos were brought back from the brink of extinction in South Africa in the 1960s to a stable population of close to 20,000. Most of them are the larger white rhinos and about three quarters are in the Kruger. With fewer than 5,000 black rhinos alive they are classified by the World Wildlife Fund as critically endangered.
For Jooste, looking down at the dying animal brought home the challenges that he and his rangers face.
“We stood at the most horrific sight, a rhino with his nose cut off,” Jooste said as he imitated the dying breaths of the rhino. “Now that’s bad.”

To contact the reporter on this story: Franz Wild in Kruger National Park at fwild@bloomberg.net
To contact the editors responsible for this story: Antony Sguazzin at asguazzin@bloomberg.net; Nasreen Seria at nseria@bloomberg.net

[Toko]

Black Mambas strike at the heart of poaching

HOEDSPRUIT - The Black Mambas, a new anti poaching combat team, has just been launched by the Olifants West Conservation Trust in partnership with Transfontier Africa, the Endangered Wildlife Trust (EWT) and Rhino Mercy. The team operates mainly in the Olifants West Region of the Balule Nature Reserve and has already proven successful as animal snaring in the reserve has decreased dramatically. The programme is also supported by Work for Wildlife, a Department of Public Works programme in conjunction with SANParks.
The Black Mambas’ main task is to secure the western boundary of the Greater Kruger Park (GKP) running along the busy R40 road between Hoedspruit and Phalaborwa and combat all poaching activities in this area.
What makes this initiative unique is that the majority of the members of the Black Mambas are women! All the members were recruited from families with direct links to the reserves or others adjacent to the Balule. This is real empowerment for the children of the parents who have lived all their lives on game and cattle farms that are now incorporated in the Greater Kruger National Park. One may wonder about the capabilities of the female team members, but they have already proven themselves as exceptional in gathering information which has led to numerous anti poaching successes. Protrack Anti Poaching Unit provides armed response for the Black Mambas.
The Black Mambas received specialist training for their deployment. To further empower their anti poaching efforts, a Belgian Shepherd Dog (Malinois), specially trained to sniff out wildlife products, firearms and ammunition has been donated to the Black Mambas. This donation by the EWT is worth R250 000.
‘This is a turning point in the fight against poachers. We are making these families who have lived in the area, the benefactors to get a decent job and skills to contribute to the conservation of the fauna of this country. We are very proud that the women of South Africa have joined us in this fight. We shall celebrate this on 1 May, together with other workers’ says Nick Koornhof MP and Chairperson of the Olifants West Conservation Trust.

[Toko]

SA, Vietnam sign ‘action plan’ to curb rhino poaching

BY SUE BLAINE, 06 MAI 2013, 16:07

DEPUTY Water and Environmental Affairs Minister Rejoice Mabudafhasi and Vietnam’s Deputy Agriculture and Rural Development Minister, Ha Cong Tuan, on Monday signed an "action plan" aimed primarily at addressing rhino poaching in South Africa.

Conservationists see Vietnam as integral to curbing the poaching that feeds the illegal horn trade. The country, a known destination for much of the illegal rhino horn poached in South Africa, posted the highest wildlife crime score in the World Wide Fund (WWF) for Nature’s 2012 Wildlife Crime Scorecard report.

The action plan is rooted in a memorandum of understanding (MoU) signed between the two countries in December last year. The action plan outlines actions up to 2017, and provides for continual review.

Rhino horn, prized in Vietnam as a "pick-me-up", cancer cure, and even an aphrodisiac, has been reported to fetch about $60,000/kg in the southeast Asia country. But Mr Tuan said at the Pretoria signing ceremony that the Vietnamese government’s latest information showed the price had dropped from $500/100g at the start of the year to $100/100g. He attributed this to the government’s efforts to educate Vietnamese citizens about the negative effects of rhino poaching.

It is agreed South Africa is not winning the war on rhino poaching. So far this year the country has lost at least 273 rhinos to poachers. The country lost a record 633 rhinos between January 1 and December 19 last year. The previous record, for 2011, was 448.

Poaching began to escalate in 2008, which some have linked to changes in hunting regulations.

Mr Tuan said the action plan covered 26 "detailed actions", but neither the South African nor the Vietnamese delegations gave further details or deadlines to reporters in response to their questions.

They did, however, say a review of South African and Vietnamese legislation was the first port of call, and it was hoped this would be finalised within a year.

The MoU signed in Hanoi, Vietnam, last December did not focus solely on rhino poaching. It also covered biodiversity management; conservation and protection; compliance with international conventions, particularly the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (Cites); information exchange; technology transfer; and development and natural resource management.

Rose Masela, acting head of the Department of Environmental Affairs’ national wildlife information management unit, said the action plan was a technical document, which would be changed throughout the agreed co-operation period. Workshops would be held yearly to review action taken and to determine what action needed to be taken. There would also be annual bilateral meetings.

Mr Tuan said Vietnam viewed rhino poaching as a serious matter, and had confiscated illegal rhino horn and dealt with perpetrators "in terms of Vietnamese law".

Ho Chi Minh City customs officials had seized two horns, weighing 7.28kg, wrapped in silver paper and hidden in the luggage of a passenger identified only as 34-year-old NDD, who arrived in the city on a flight from Doha late on Saturday, ThanNienNews.com reported on Monday.

The horns were presumably sourced from Africa, the officials said.

NDD had been detained pending further investigations, the police said without elaborating.

Conservationists attending an international Cites conference in March called on Vietnam in particular to redouble its efforts, along with Mozambique, which was urged to prioritise legislation to prevent rhino poaching and illegal trade.

[Toko]

Plan to stop rhino poachers

SCHALK MOUTON | 07 Mai, 2013 00:08

Though South Africa yesterday signed a detailed implementation plan with the Vietnamese government to stop rhino poaching, one of the major loopholes in the illegal rhino horn trade remains unblocked.

Xai Savang - a company identified as a major distributor of rhino horn, lion bones and pangolins to Vietnam, among others - is based in Laos. Neither South Africa nor Vietnam has any jurisdiction over the country.

South African Deputy Minister of Water and Environmental Affairs Rejoice Mabudafhasi and Vietnamese Deputy Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development Ha Cong Tuan yesterday signed into action a plan to implement a memorandum of understanding between the two countries, signed off in December.

The plan is based on 26 "definable actions", to which deadlines have been set, and is aimed at strengthening communication and information sharing, harmonising legislation, as well as improving law enforcement in wildlife trafficking.

The MoU will, however, be of little use against Xai Savang, the company for which Thai citizen Chumlong Lemtongthai sourced rhino horn and lion bones.

Lemtongthai was sentenced to 40 years' imprisonment in November after pleading guilty to paying prostitutes to pose as hunters, and exporting rhino horns to Southeast Asia.

Vietnam committed to providing South Africa with a list of all registered hunters in Vietnam.

To cull "pseudo hunts", only these hunters would be allowed to apply for rhino hunting permits in South Africa. However, as Xai Savang is based in Laos, Tuan did not want to comment on whether any of the company' s employees or associates would be on the list.

While the widespread use of rhino horn by Vietnamese citizens has been identified by illegal wildlife trade monitoring group TRAFFIC, among others, as one of the main drivers of the spike in rhino poaching in South Africa, Tuan said yesterday that only a "small group with high incomes" are using rhino horn for medicinal purposes.

"We are aware that a small number - some few people - who have high incomes are now illegally using the rhino," he said.

"These are a small number who are violating Vietnamese legislation. So far we have detected and confiscated many violation cases."