Black rhino horn into new areas
2004-08-27 16:16
Pietermaritzburg - Sixteen black rhino will soon move to KwaZulu-Natal's Munyawana Conservancy from game reserves in the province to make available more land for the conservation of critically endangered species.
This would also reduce pressure on existing reserves and provide new territory in which the species could breed quickly, said the Worldwide Fund for Nature (WWF) and Ezemvelo KZN Wildlife black rhino range expansion project on Friday.
"This is a quantum leap in increasing the area under black rhino conservation and the numbers of animals," said WWF project leader Jacques Flamand.
"For many years, there has been no new land in the province's formal protected areas on which to put black rhino.
Create larger land areas
Through this project we have the opportunity to bring in big chunks of new land for black rhino conservation by working in partnership with non-state landowners."
Landowners in the conservancy have dropped fences to create a larger, ecologically more rational areas of land under conservation.
"People have been talking about dropping fences for years. The black rhino from the project are a big enough carrot for people actually to do it," said Les Carlisle, of Conservation Corporation Africa, one of the partners in the conservancy.
- SAPA