South Africa considers viability of legal rhino horn trade

Team will look into technical and strategic aspects of the trade in response to poaching crisis, but ministry says South Africa has not taken a position on the issue

Tuesday 10 February 2015 12.23 GMT

South Africa has appointed a panel of experts to examine the viability of a legal rhino horn trade, the environmental affairs ministry said on Tuesday as poaching of the species spiked to record levels.

The 21-member task team will look into technical and strategic aspects of the trade.

“It is important to emphasise that South Africa has not taken a position on the issue and will not do so until the committee has completed its work and presented its findings,” said the ministry in a statement.

The committee which includes conservationists, scientists and immigration authorities, is tasked with identifying additional measures to curb the illegal killings, including enhanced intelligence to break up syndicates.

It has to submit its report to government before year end.

Continued ...

New report identifies actions needed to curb illegal ivory and rhino horn trade

A new report by the wildlife monitoring network TRAFFIC has identified actions needed to curtail illegal ivory and rhino horn trafficking before it is too late.

The assessment identified capacity gaps and key intervention points in countries combating wildlife trafficking. Their recommendations included developing coordinated, specialised intelligence units to disrupt organised criminal networks and improving training, law enforcement technology, and monitoring judiciary processes at key locations in Africa and Asia.

Between 1998 and 2011 illegal trade in ivory has increased by nearly 300 per cent while the illegal rhino horn trade has reached the highest levels since the early 1990s and according to the report “the fundamental trade dynamic now lies between Africa and Asia.”

Continued ...

Could legalising rhino horn trade stop poaching?

South Africa is considering legalising rhino horn trade - in a bid to combat rampant rhino poaching, but the suggestion has been met with mixed reaction in Southern Africa.

Demand for rhino horn is at an all time high and South Africa, which has the largest reserves of the wild animal, is a prime hunting ground for poachers.

Over the past three years, gangs are said to have killed more than 800 rhinos for their horns, which can fetch £22,000 ($35,055) per kg on the black market.

Poachers use a chainsaw to cut away the rhino's horns, after darting it with a tranquilizer - drugged and helpless the animal bleeds to death.

Large syndicates are involved in this multi-billion dollar trade worldwide - exporting the horns from Africa to parts of Asia and the Middle-East.

Despite many anti-poaching measures 310 have been killed in South Africa this year, more than 330 had been killed at the end of last year - and the numbers are set to increase, experts warn.

In the five years up to 2005, an average of 36 rhinos were killed each year.

Some say today's efforts are "too conventional" and are not enough.

Now South Africa has commissioned a study into whether legalising trade in rhino horn could in fact help to bring down poaching, the Department of Environmental Affairs announced recently.

"We are impartial at this stage but we are looking at all the suggestions which could help us in the fight against poachers," the department's spokesperson, Albie Modise, told the BBC.

"We are awaiting submissions and would consider this if we get authentic scientific backing that this would be effective," he said.

The idea is that legalising rhino horn trade would make South Africa directly responsible for meeting the demand for the horns - taking power out of the hands of poachers and placing it in the hands authorities who would also be sensitive to current conservation efforts.

These authorities would do market research into global markets of the trade, said Mr Modise.

The department says rhino horn stock piles could also be sold to fund further rhino conservation efforts.

Mr Modise says the suggestion first came up at a rhino summit held last year to find ways of tackling poaching in southern Africa.

Rhino horn trade is regulated by the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (Cites) and at present South Africa allows the export of horns only as hunting trophies.

The legal debate
But the consideration has drawn heavy criticism from international conversation group WWF, which says this would be a setback by decades the efforts made to stabilise the rhino population.

"We understand the need to come up with new ways of combating the rhino horn trade but we are against the notion that legalising it is the answer," said Morne du Plessis, of WWF in South Africa.
By Pumza Fihlani BBC News, Johannesburg

Read on ...

Rhino horn: Fooling the thieves lured by riches

The thieves who broke into the Natural History Museum in Tring during the early hours of Saturday morning probably thought it had been a good night's work.

They took two rhino horns, weighing 2kg each and worth about £240,000 on the black market. Or so they thought.

Unfortunately for them, staff at the Hertfordshire museum were aware of the string of thefts from other museums and auction houses, and had swapped the real rhino horns for carefully crafted fakes, almost indistinguishable from the real thing. And totally worthless.

This year alone, gangs have stolen rhino horns from more than 30 collections across Europe. A Czech castle has been targeted, natural history museums in Belgium, Germany, France and Italy, and other sites in Portugal and Sweden.

In Britain, rhino horns have also been stolen from the Haslemere Educational Museum in Surrey and at the end of July thieves passed over a 2,000 year old Egyptian death mask to take a horn from Ipswich Museum.

Poaching crisis
These gangs are organised and plan in advance. The head of security for the Natural History Museum, Andrew Wilkinson, says they had an idea that they were being targeted: "We believe we were the subject of a hostile reconnaissance the week before. Staff spotted the man and we were able to put in extra measures to ensure that we were fully prepared.

"But it didn't stop them getting in. They made an initial attempt on the front door at midnight. The police were called and we repaired the door. Unfortunately they came back at half-past-four and got in through a first-storey window."

It can be no coincidence that at the same time, conservationists are warning that the world's rhino population is facing a poaching crisis.

Richard Thomas, from wildlife trade monitoring network Traffic, says the number of animals being killed has increased dramatically: "Increasingly we're seeing live animals targeted. The number of rhinos being poached in South Africa has risen from a dozen or so four or five years ago to last year when we reached a record high of 333. But we're way past 200 animals already this year."

Britain has taken a lead in the fight against the illegal trade in rhino horns. A week ago, the government secured an international agreement to curb sales and will lead to talks on how to fight myths about the medicinal powers of rhino horn.

Scarcity value
And this is the real problem. In China, traditionally rhino horn powder was used to treat fever, but a modern myth has sprung up - that has no basis in science - that it can cure cancer.

In Vietnam they are prized by the rich to display in their homes, pushing demand even higher.

Globally, the campaign to stop the trade in rhino horns has been very successful and any loopholes in the law that allowed the legal trade of antique horns have now been closed.

This makes their availability scarce but, with demand from Asia high, the prices have soared. On the black market rhino horns sell for around £50,000 per kilo, making them more valuable than gold, diamonds and cocaine.

Mr Thomas said: "Organised crime steps in anywhere where there's quick and easy money to be made, and rhino horns have hit their radar. They're easy to conceal and therefore easy to smuggle."

The Natural History Museum may have thwarted the rhino horn thieves this time, but it is unlikely they will be the last collection to be hit. While demand is high, and there is big money to be made, someone will try to find a way around the law.
By Niki Cardwell BBC News
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-14696639

China launches rhino farm with South African rhinos

TIME magazine exposes plans for Chinese rhino ‘farming'

June 2011. TIME magazine has uncovered evidence of plans to 'farm' rhinos in Africa, in contravention of national and international legislation. The latest issue of TIME magazine reveals a secret plot in China to breed imported white rhinos commercially so that their horns can be used in so called traditional medicine-a scheme that would be in direct contravention of national and international laws, and which contradicts statements made in 2010 by Chinese officials at an international meeting and representatives of the traditional Chinese medicine industry.

Rhino farm
In March 2010, members of the World Federation of Chinese Medicine Societies made a declaration saying they did not want their industry tainted by the use of endangered species parts or derivatives. Later that month, Chinese officials had affirmed to world governments at CITES (the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora) that there were no intentions to permit rhino farming in the country, yet a TIME reporter uncovered detailed business plans by an ammunitions company to sell and market rhino horn pills, with an aim to generate a 60 million dollar profit annually.

Unintended consequences
Tom Milliken, TRAFFIC's expert on the rhino horn trade, said "The natural world is scarred with the unintended consequences of what those only interested in profit might consider ‘good business plans. The scale of the Chinese market is potentially so awesome, one miscalculation and we potentially could lose entire species, poached to meet the rising demand."

Rhino poaching spree
Asian demand for rhino horn is fuelling a rhino poaching spree in southern Africa, which has seen the number of animals illegally killed in South Africa alone rise to more than 333 in 2010 and shows no signs of abating.

The plan to profit commercially from the importation of live rhinos into China, as alleged by TIME, is also problematic for South African authorities who have reportedly allowed the exportation of 103 live white rhinos since 2007.

South Africa requires the importing country to have adequate legislation in place to ensure live rhinos will only be used for the purpose indicated on the CITES export and import permits to avoid parts and derivatives of live specimens being used commercially.

Rhino horn farming
TIME reveals that these rhinos may in fact find their horns whittled down by one kilogramme each year, using a "self-suction living rhinoceros horn-scraping tool", under a curious new patent application filed by a subsidiary company of the munitions manufacturer in June 2010.

"South Africa should impose a moratorium on all further exports of live rhinos, unless China can demonstrate that their intended use is compliant with the country's export policy.

"None of the live rhinos sent to China were for commercial purposes" says Milliken. "It appears that people are being misled."

http://www.wildlifeextra.com/go/news/rhino-china.html