Africa Wild

And then some are set free again for the lack of evidence. My
golly I just cannot believe what is all happening.

SA, Kenya to lock horns
SCHALK MOUTON | 07 February, 2013 00:40


Two of Africa's leading wildlife tourism destinations, South Africa and Kenya, are headed for a tense showdown at the Cites Convention over a possible ban on rhino horn exports.

Kenya - which also suffers from a scourge of rhino, and especially elephant, poaching - has proposed that all rhino horn trophy exports from South Africa and Swaziland be banned, at least until 2019.

South Africa's Cites management authority, which falls under the Department of Environmental Affairs, has rejected the proposal, labelling it "unacceptable and not supported".

"The proposal violates South Africa's sovereign right," the authority said. "Hunting is a sustainable form of utilisation and South Africa has implemented a number of legal instruments to regulate the industry."

The Kenyan proposal was brought to South Africa's attention on September 25 last year, only nine days before the deadline for submissions to amendments to Cites regulations, which will be discussed at the convention in Bangkok next month.

South Africa did not have time to make counter-submissions and will have to cast its vote, with the 175 other member countries, to either support or reject the proposal.

Jo Shaw, rhino coordinator at the World Wildlife Fund, believes Kenya's proposal will only side-track the debate on rhino poaching.

"What really needs to be the focus is that Vietnam is not taking it [illegal trade in rhino horn] seriously," she said. "That needs to be the real discussion."

South Africa has already banned the export of rhino horn by Vietnamese citizens and clamped down on so-called pseudo-hunts by not giving hunting permits to Vietnamese citizens.

While Vietnam is branded as an "implicated state", the country claims that "rhinoceros horn is not commonly or widely used there".

A report by the International Union for Conservation of Nature and wildlife trade monitoring network TRAFFIC says the high levels of poaching have caused the value of South Africa's rhino population to decrease by $63-million (R560- million) as farmers believe they become targets for owning them.

"There is concern that the move away from rhino ownership may ultimately threaten the biological management of white rhinos, as the private sector contributed greatly to the rapid increase in numbers in the past," Shaw said.

This week, a debate was held in the European Parliament in Strasbourg on the upcoming CITES and the EU’s positions going into CoP 16. The EU position is not yet finalized, but they might support Kenya's proposal.

Ezemvelo gets R47m to tackle poachers

February 8 2013 at 03:18pm
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Sipho Khumalo

THE KwaZulu-Natal government is upping the ante against rhino poaching with a war chest of R47 million given by the provincial treasury to Ezemvelo KZN Wildlife to intensify its fight in the bloody battle.

Ezemvelo chief executive officer Bandile Mkhize outlined the agency’s plan for halting poaching to the joint meeting of the standing committee on public accounts (Scopa) and finance portfolio committee in Pietermaritzburg yesterday.

He said the money would be made available over two years.

In the first year, Ezemvelo would use R28m and R19m in the second.

“We are very grateful to the Treasury for this allocation as we need funds for proper equipment to fight this war,” said Mkhize.

He said the funds came at a time when poachers were intensifying their attacks, with eight rhinos already killed this year in the province and 60 lost nationally.

Last year 66 rhinos were killed in KwaZulu-Natal and 658 nationally.

A summary of planned interventions included the purchase of 31 vehicles to replace the ageing fleet in rhino reserves and to enable vehicles temporarily re-assigned from non-rhino reserves to return to normal operations.

The plan also placed a premium on information and intelligence gathering.

Mkhize said without this critical information and intelligence, the fight against poaching would not achieve any results.

A fund had been created to extend the services of an information gathering company as well as to reward informers.

A total of R600 000 has been set aside to pay informers.

Mkhize said the provision would be sufficient to hire two helicopters to assist with immediate responses to poaching incidents.

“In addition, there will be an evaluation on the feasibility of a future helicopter purchase,” he said.

The agency was also setting up a specialised anti-poaching response unit with trained personnel to beef up staffing at poaching hot spots.

This unit would be immediately supplemented through the deployment of additional field units.

Mkhize said security companies would be engaged to patrol road corridors within protected areas identified as “high risk” through the risk assessment plan.

Other planned interventions included horse patrols and the purchase of long-range surveillance cameras as well as 60 high-calibre firearms for field rangers.

The agency has also engaged community ambassadors to drive an anti-poaching awareness campaign.

“We have so far engaged a total of 100 ambassadors at a cost of R2 000 per month. We will push this to 500 in the next financial year and spread them to other reserves.

“We hope that the results will be there for everyone to see,” said Mkhize.

He said some of these measures had already been implemented and expressed confidence that the impact would be felt by the end of March.

Presumably the announcement of the allocations of funds is also being fudged so as to mislead the criminals. Otherwise not very bright!

This on SANParks' FB page:



#NEWSFLASH-In a dramatic turn of events, typical of the current war on rhino poaching, the CEO of SANParks while on a helicopter flight to observe flood damage had to divert to chase suspected poachers currently running towards the Mozambican border.


Utterly remarkable!

Absolutely

And I suppose we are all going to hear how he is helping in the fight against poaching

Batman swoops on criminals An amazing scoop, what a story.

There are 100s of good men doing this daily, why aren't they mentioned

iNdlovu wrote:.

There are 100s of good men doing this daily, why aren't they mentioned

That is my question too but it goes like that in most companies, the normal workers do the great work and the bosses claim the spotlight