Hunting rhino for survival
22 Mar 2013
“THE media always paints us in a negative light.”
It felt like a bullet with my name on it.
The hunter had my attention.
I was at the premiere of The White Rhino: A Conservation Success Story, a film that was instrumental in squashing a radical proposal by Kenya at the recent Cites (Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species) meeting in Bangkok, which would have banned the legal export of white rhino trophies from South Africa and Swaziland until at least 2018.
“It was a result of this film and the strong representation by a powerful South African delegation that it was withdrawn just before it got to the vote,” said Coenraad Vermaak, a trophy-hunting safari businessperson.
“If that proposal had been accepted it would have become legally binding and would have had a devastating impact on the conservation of the species in South Africa.”
The ban hoped to curb white-rhino poaching, which has skyrocketed since 2008, when mostly Vietnamese nationals started finding ways of getting rhino horn to feed their country’s obsession with its alleged health qualities. “How is it that Kenya, with a population of 361 southern white rhino (a 2010 estimate), all of which were reintroduced from South Africa and 70% of which occur on private land, can purport to have a solution for another country that has over 18 000 white rhino?” the documentary queries.
The insinuation was that animal-rights groups had influenced the country’s proposal, which would have been counter-productive to South Africa’s unique wildlife management policies, which are based on the sustainable use of wildlife.
According to Kenyan wildlife ecologist Mike Norton-Griffiths, 35 years ago, both countries had wildlife populations of about 1 000 000. Kenya then banned the use of wildlife for anything except tourism. Its numbers have declined by 80%. Conversely, South Africa adopted a more flexible policy based on the sustainable use of wildlife as an economic resource. Its wildlife estate now stands at over three million, 2,5 million of which are conserved on privately owned land covering over 20 million hectares.
South Africa’s wildlife-management system evolved due to conservation icons such as Dr Ian Player, who joined the Natal Parks Board in 1952. He spearheaded Operation Rhino in 1960, which brought the southern white rhino back from the brink of extinction. In 1953, he counted 437 white rhinos in Mfolozi, which was then the only place they could be found. “I started to lobby at that time to get permission to capture rhino and move them elsewhere. The move was a success and within a decade, every game reserve in South Africa had acquired founder populations of rhino. In 1972, there were 1 800 rhinos in Mfolozi, which were about 400 head over safe biological carrying capacity. That was when we punted putting them on the hunting list.”
“With the population in Mfolozi game reserve increasing in spite of live removal and translocation, the board was persuaded in 1970 to move the rhino from the specially protected species list to protected species, where they could be hunted under controlled conditions by permit on commercial ranches,” said former Natal Parks Board senior officer David Cook.
“That was the beginning of a whole new era of conservation in this country,” said Player. “Cattle ranches very quickly saw that this was an economic thing. This led to a tremendous increase of rhino, as well as land under conservation.”
“Those pioneers in the hunting industry set the scene,” said Cook. “They acted as the catalyst for what was to become a multi-billion rand industry. [Rhino prices increased] from R200 a head to R250 000 each, as more farmers and agriculturalists on marginal land made the move and invested in fences and restocked ranches that were formally stocked with goats and cattle.”
Vermaak was one of those pioneers. “I was one of the first game farmers in Natal to introduce white rhino on private land, in the seventies, when they cost R250,” he said.
“My neighbours told me I was mad, but I would never have bought rhino if they were not a financial investment from which I expected a return.
“They had a value and that was the incentive for me then, as it still is today for hundreds of white-rhino owners on game farms who own over 5 000 of them. That’s one third of the total national population.”
“Trophy hunting has been a very powerful driving force behind rhino conservation in South Africa since the late sixties, and especially since that change in legislature and market price in the late eighties,” said wildlife economist Michael ’t Sas-Rolfes.
In 1994, South Africa’s rhino situation was so healthy that Cites allowed the white rhino to be downlisted to Appendix 2, to officially allow for the export of live rhinos and the export of trophies derived from professional hunting safaris. When the government moved to stem the flow of rhino horn onto the black market by declaring a national moratorium on internal sales of horn in 2009 — and in the face of a sharp increase in poaching — psuedo trophy hunters from East and Southeast Asia turned to exploiting a loophole (closed in 2011) in the regulatory system to legally export an estimated 720 rhino horns to Asian markets, most of which is believed to have entered the traditional medicine market.
“In 2009, Water and Environmental Affairs Minister Buyelwa Sonjica amended the Biodiversity Act to issue national norms and standards. This co-ordinated the applications for white rhino through the establishment of a national register. In 2011, it was further amended to make applicants give proof that they were bona fide hunters. It became compulsory for environmental-management inspectors to be present at each rhino hunt and that DNA samples are taken from the killed rhino. These amendments had a significant impact on the number of applicants. In 2011, there were 222 applications and 91 in 2012.”
The thirst for rhino horn was evident as poaching levels skyrocketed after these loopholes were tightened, resulting in the allocation of vast resources and a new focus to combat the scourge. “The main poachers are well-armed from Mozambique and have military training, skills and hardware,” says Chris Galliers of the Game Rangers Association of Africa.
“The government has improved its selection process and training of rangers. They have made it a priority as a threat to national security. Recently, 20 NPA prosecutors were assigned 186 cases involving rhino poaching. Courts are imposing harsh sentences to deter poaches. There was also the signing of the MoA between SA and Vietnam.”
It is a different picture for private game farmers, according to Private Rhino Owners Association chairperson Pelham Jones.
“We are perceived as the soft target by poaching syndicates,” he said. “We do not have the privilege of the army or police to help us, so we have an armed protection unit going out armed with a pepper spray, facing gangs who are heavily armed, sophisticated, well-informed and brutal in their conduct.
“We are reliant on the economics of the rhino industry to be able to justify and sustain the ownership of rhino,” he said.
“A rhino should be valued at over half a million rand; sadly rhino have fallen to half that figure. Investor confidence in Product Rhino has fallen. While their value has dropped, expenses have increased because before 2008 we did not need as much security.” As a result, private properties have dropped from 400 to about 350, which means a loss of range of some 300 000 hectares for the rhino. “If rhino trophies were banned, a whole house of cards would fall,” said ’T Sas-Rolfes.
Wildlife contributes about R9 billion to the national GDP per annum, according to Wildlife Ranching SA President Dr Gert Dry. “That makes us, as an agricultural commodity, the fifth biggest.”
According to the film, rhinos accounted for 75% of total turnover for Ezemvelo KZN Wildlife between 2008 and 2011. Ezemvelo CEO Dr Bandile Mkhize said that local communities can now survive because of the income generated from hunting.
“The Makasa community generated R1 million, which is money they could never have generated if they didn’t have this natural resource,” he said.
“These rhinos were saved by us from extinction,” said Mkhize. “It is important for us to continue that legacy and to emphasise that there is nothing wrong with the sustainable use of natural resources.”
“Anything that imperils [the hunting industry] really is going against conservation,” said Player.
Jones, who represented the Private Rhino Owners Association at Cites, said Kenya recognised the strength of the South African position on counter argument and withdrew on the day. “[Water and Environmental Affairs] Minister [Edna] Molewa then announced cabinet’s approval for the department to investigate and explore all possibilities to legalise trade to shut down the black market of illegal trade in rhino horn.”
While advocates of sustainable use of wildlife won the battle against Kenya and the animal rights groups at Cites, it appears their war at home has only just begun.
• The White Rhino: A Conservation Success Story was produced by Zig Mackintosh of Osprey Filming Company, which is based in Hilton. They have made numerous films free of charge, including this one, to aid conservation.
