Sanparks is a 'world leader'

2009-07-15 08:22

Elise Tempelhoff

Johannesburg - There are people "out there" who might think that conservation and black people are two mutually exclusive concepts, but Sanparks is currently considered a world leader in the area of biodiversity management and conservation.

This is what David Mabunda, chief executive of conservation at Sanparks, had to say on Tuesday in reaction to the controversy over the recent sale of 200 of the Kruger Park's white rhino to game farmers and breeders. Ten of these animals have since died.

On Monday, conservation organisations accused Sanparks of turning into a "kind of supermarket" that is only interested in profiting from the sale of white rhinos, an endangered species.

These organisations, which include Sanwild and Animal Rights Africa, have accused Sanparks amongst other things, of not taking the animals' welfare seriously after they're sold.

A responsibility

According to Sanwild's Louise Joubert, Sanparks had a duty and a responsibility to ensure that these animals - precisely because they were an endangered species - were properly transported to their new homes, and were not immediately hunted as "canned" rhinos.

Hector Magome, executive director of conservation services at Sanparks, said the game park did not have a legal duty to see to the welfare of the animals after they were sold.

"However, we do feel ethically responsible for these animals, and therefore we screen prospective buyers carefully. If a buyer has let us down once, we'll never sell rhinos to him again."

Mabunda said: "Before 1994 the park's management sold the animals indiscriminately and the auctions were never advertised. We wanted to take the democratic route and thus decided to place advertisements. Thus we are now the victims of our own democratic decision."

According to Mabunda, the park had a "healthy" rhinoceros population of between 9 000 and 12 000.

Sanparks would use the profits from the rhino sales to buy more land for conservation and to initiate special conservation projects.

- Beeld