'Fight back against poachers'
2010-01-05 20:02
Johannesburg - The government must fight back against the poachers waging war on the country's rhinoceros population, the Democratic Alliance said on Tuesday.
"Winning the war against rhino poaching will be a difficult task," DA water and environmental affairs spokesperson Gareth Morgan said in a statement.
"The demand for rhino horn from markets in Asia is growing, and its high value means that criminal syndicates will go to great lengths to obtain horns," he said.
"Increasing anti-poaching personnel in the field is of utmost importance, and indeed, some efforts have been made in this regard in recent months, particularly in the Kruger National Park.
"But improving policing in one park may only serve to displace poaching activities to other parks, particularly the more poorly funded provincial parks."
Spike in poaching
Morgan said a reply to a parliamentary question revealed that, of 253 rhinos killed by poachers in the past five years, 104 died in 2009 alone, with only 19 killed in 2005.
"The spike in poaching began two years ago, with 87 rhinos reportedly killed in 2008," he said.
Morgan said it was important for national and provincial authorities to work together.
"Of critical importance is the need to fast track the creation of a national biodiversity enforcement unit to co-ordinate and investigate biodiversity-related crimes, particularly for rhino poaching."
He said that while the government had made it more difficult to export legally-obtained rhino horns, these provisions only affected law-abiding citizens.
"Clearly, many horns obtained from illegally killing rhinos are flowing out of South Africa, even though the government does not have any statistics on this outflow.
"South Africa needs to put pressure on our neighbouring countries, most notably Mozambique and Zimbabwe, to ensure that those countries make it far more difficult for illegally-gained rhino horn to leave the continent for foreign markets."
Poaching on private ranches
He urged the government to regularly engage with everyone who had an interest in reducing poaching.
"A fair amount of rhinos are being poached on private reserves, so these land owners must also be brought into the discussion.
"There may be many new ideas on how to reduce poaching from knowledgeable people outside of government and the parks authorities," he said.
More precious than gold
The Associated Press reported on Monday that poachers killed an endangered southern white rhino on a privately-owned ranch in central Kenya last month.
Wildlife rangers arrested 12 people and recovered two rhino horns and cash.
Just a week earlier, four of the world's last eight known northern white rhinos were brought to Kenya in the hope they would reproduce.
The news agency reported that rhino horns sell for more than gold on a per-weight basis with the horns used to make dagger handles in the Middle East and medicine in Asia.
- SAPA