(Please be sure to read all of the chapters….this will provide a broader understanding)
If you have read my last post from Michael Eustice in Business Day you will have some idea on this chapter already.
Since CITES banned the trade in rhino horn in 1976 over 65, 000 rhino have been butchered. No ban has ever succeeded. They usually fuel the fuel the coffers of the criminals.
Over 400 private rhino owners exist in South Africa. Collectively they hold approximately 30% of our rhino but became non –viable for them to farm rhino. Let me first contextualise the word “farm”. Most of us associate a farm with domestic stock but nowadays we farm pretty much everything…from ostriches to fish, from game farms ( where animals are bred and sold on to other farms) to hunting farms ( where Mr Hunter obtains a permit to hunt the animal). Many of the private rhino owners buy game from other sources (whether a private owner or national park such at Kruger).
But keeping rhino has become extremely costly. Pelham Jones, chairman of the Private Rhino Owners Association says “our rhino are worth more dead than alive. It is costly to de-horn the animals but we need to in order to keep them safe”, he stresses. “It is expensive moving the horn to the bank and it cots a great deal of money to ensure adequate security and surveillance to protect our animals”, he adds.
John Hume shares another analogy with me: “Imagine I am a sheep farmer and I am told I may shear my sheep but I may never sell my wool?” says John. “Or perhaps this analogy is better … I may indeed sell the wool but as long as I kill the sheep first.” Not withstanding the debate over wildlife farming and domestic farming, the story holds true…a rhino farmer may only sell the horn if the animal legally killed.
Many people say flood the market with horn. This will not work because all we do then is create a bigger market with cheaper prices. Control and regulate trade (much like the diamond industry) would be a preferred way to stop the slaughter of our rhino. This is a financial problem and needs to have financial solution. It has been said that ‘conservation without money is conversation’.
Like you, I too prefer all our rhino to carry their horns but at what expense? Their lives. I reiterate, there is NO ‘SILVER BULLET’ SOLUTION. You cannot and should not de-horn in the Kruger (so they increase their war machine and take the fight to the poachers). If the private game park owner can afford to, they can poison the horn. Education of Asian markets? Not before the last rhino has fallen.
Legalising trade is, in my view, the best option available at present to save the rhino from extinction. Also, it brings literally billions of rands into the country of which a great percentage could go back into conservation. What if money from rhino horn could help save the much more endangered wild dogs?
