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Rhino Poaching: Legalizing Horn Trade May Be the Answer
by Michael Eustace
South Africa has done a superb job in growing rhino numbers from about 100 in 1900, to 18.000 today. In the rest of Africa, rhino populations have declined from 100.000 in 1965, to 5.000 today. Poachers are now focusing on the main reservoir, South Africa.
South Africa has had 100 animals poached so far this year and a further 150 shot in disguised trophy hunts. Together with Zimbabwe losses, the total for the year is likely to exceed 300 animals.
This killing is absurd. South Africa can supply an equivalent amount of the horn being poached with horn collected annually from natural deaths alone. But we are not allowed to sell horn internationally as a result of a Cites (Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species) resolution passed in 1977.
The answer to the plight of the rhino may well not be in banning trade but rather in regulated horn sales. South Africa could do this by establishing a Central Selling Organization, as De Beers used to have, and by selling certified horn to approved buyers. If demand increases as a result of the establishment of a legal trade we have sufficient stockpiles together with horn generated from natural deaths to satisfy double the current volumes being poached for the next 10 years. In addition and in order to keep the rhinos in parks in their natural horned state, the private sector could harvest horn from rhino on game farms, which horn re-grows and this would extend supplies to 3 times the current illegal market volumes. Furthermore, the CSO will control the market and can raise the price if the market is strong and by so doing bring supply and demand into balance.
Hopefully the Chinese will welcome a legal trade that supplies the market in a sustainable way without the need to kill hundreds of rhino. The proceeds from the sales of, say, R400 million p.a., will go to conservation (rather than criminals) and also fund increased anti-poaching efforts and policing of the illegal trade routes. This will increase the business risk of illegal traders as will the prospect of the CSO dropping prices from time to time as a strategy to damage any illegal supply routes.
But we need CITES approval. It is too late to get rhino horn trade on to the formal agenda for their next meeting in March 2010 but the issue needs to be discussed at this meeting and for member states to understand the problem and to consider supporting the probable solution. Kenya has an astonishing proposal on the agenda that promotes the destruction of horn stockpiles and we need to make clear during this debate, our position and the inappropriate nature of that proposal. Rhino protection is one of the most important conservation issues in Africa and South Africa, as the main player, needs to champion it. To wait for the next meeting in 2013 before promoting change and putting in place the mechanisms for change, will just accommodate increased poaching. Current trends suggest that at least 1000 animals will be poached over the next 3 years and it could be much more as the rewards are enormous and the risks low. Poaching over vast areas is extremely difficult to control.
The mere prospect of a legal trade and a powerful CSO and increased policing should reduce the risk of participation by new and more sophisticated crime syndicates. Also, the enthusiasm for Far Eastern stockpiling of horn for speculative purposes, which is a current concern and a real threat for the future, should be reduced.
Banning horn trade over the past 30 years has clearly not been a winning strategy. A regulated trade that can satisfy the demand in a sustainable way without killing animals and which has an in-built growth rate related to increasing populations, would seem a better plan.
by Michael Eustace
South Africa has done a superb job in growing rhino numbers from about 100 in 1900, to 18.000 today. In the rest of Africa, rhino populations have declined from 100.000 in 1965, to 5.000 today. Poachers are now focusing on the main reservoir, South Africa.
South Africa has had 100 animals poached so far this year and a further 150 shot in disguised trophy hunts. Together with Zimbabwe losses, the total for the year is likely to exceed 300 animals.
This killing is absurd. South Africa can supply an equivalent amount of the horn being poached with horn collected annually from natural deaths alone. But we are not allowed to sell horn internationally as a result of a Cites (Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species) resolution passed in 1977.
The answer to the plight of the rhino may well not be in banning trade but rather in regulated horn sales. South Africa could do this by establishing a Central Selling Organization, as De Beers used to have, and by selling certified horn to approved buyers. If demand increases as a result of the establishment of a legal trade we have sufficient stockpiles together with horn generated from natural deaths to satisfy double the current volumes being poached for the next 10 years. In addition and in order to keep the rhinos in parks in their natural horned state, the private sector could harvest horn from rhino on game farms, which horn re-grows and this would extend supplies to 3 times the current illegal market volumes. Furthermore, the CSO will control the market and can raise the price if the market is strong and by so doing bring supply and demand into balance.
Hopefully the Chinese will welcome a legal trade that supplies the market in a sustainable way without the need to kill hundreds of rhino. The proceeds from the sales of, say, R400 million p.a., will go to conservation (rather than criminals) and also fund increased anti-poaching efforts and policing of the illegal trade routes. This will increase the business risk of illegal traders as will the prospect of the CSO dropping prices from time to time as a strategy to damage any illegal supply routes.
But we need CITES approval. It is too late to get rhino horn trade on to the formal agenda for their next meeting in March 2010 but the issue needs to be discussed at this meeting and for member states to understand the problem and to consider supporting the probable solution. Kenya has an astonishing proposal on the agenda that promotes the destruction of horn stockpiles and we need to make clear during this debate, our position and the inappropriate nature of that proposal. Rhino protection is one of the most important conservation issues in Africa and South Africa, as the main player, needs to champion it. To wait for the next meeting in 2013 before promoting change and putting in place the mechanisms for change, will just accommodate increased poaching. Current trends suggest that at least 1000 animals will be poached over the next 3 years and it could be much more as the rewards are enormous and the risks low. Poaching over vast areas is extremely difficult to control.
The mere prospect of a legal trade and a powerful CSO and increased policing should reduce the risk of participation by new and more sophisticated crime syndicates. Also, the enthusiasm for Far Eastern stockpiling of horn for speculative purposes, which is a current concern and a real threat for the future, should be reduced.
Banning horn trade over the past 30 years has clearly not been a winning strategy. A regulated trade that can satisfy the demand in a sustainable way without killing animals and which has an in-built growth rate related to increasing populations, would seem a better plan.
