Our rhinos and the real battle that they face - Terry Bengis Today in Skukuza, our Minister of Water and Environmental Affairs, the Honourable Edna Molewa, will sign a Memorandum of Understanding with her Mozambiquan counterpart. The MOU will seek to coordinate the efforts taken by our Government on our side of a very porous border, in the Kruger Park with whatever goes on on the adjoining piece of Mozambique, which is home to the hundreds of poachers and would be poachers who have, over the last few years, turned poaching into an industry that obviously contributes in no small measure to the GDP of Mozambique and certainly to the area’s of Masingir and Chokwe. I first visited Masingir with a friend from Nelspruit back in 2000 with a view to securing some land to build a lodge on the southern bank of the dammed Olifants, which would allow us to fish on that dam and also to travel across the three kilometre wall into the Moz section of what had now become the Mozambique part of the greater Limpopo Trans Frontier Park. In those days there were still unbribable Officials who would not be swayed by what we had to offer, so we satisfied ourselves with a great fish braai and some interesting entertainment before heading back to Nelspruit. I have been back many times since and have watched in horror as more and more Pajeros and flashier 4X4’s have arrived with the accompanying TV dishes and quad bikes, all with not a single agricultural project or industry in sight, poaching has become, I’m afraid, The Industry. When I became involved with the Rhino issue three or so years ago it was on the side of No Trade. All sorts of information was given about just why trade was a bad thing and the leader of that notion, John Hume was the biggest ogre of them all! From his farm in Malelane, Mauricedale, the No Traders would have me believe he was controlling everything. Questions were asked about just why his Rhino were not being poached, when just across the N4 in the Kruger they were being killed daily. The answer, of course, was simple John Hume was trading Illegally and was controlling the poachers! This gem of information came straight from the head of the organisation that has had the temerity to call me unethical because I dared to point out that there was no boycott of her conference in Pretoria last week, her invitations were politely declined, given that she and her minions are so vehemently anti trade. Our lawyers are now dealing with that little nonsense and she will learn that she is not immune from the law herself. I digress however. Having heard all of the accusations and stories, I decided to go into that terrible place Mauricedale and meet the ogre himself, John Hume. So off I went and spent a few days with the man himself, saw that his rhinos were not force fed, lived on the most beautiful piece of real estate in the country and were well protected at great expense. In fact, just by looking, I could see that here was someone who was putting everything he owned up for saving the Rhino, unlike the myriad of key board warriors who, despite having never met the man, despite having never been to Mauricedale or his farm in the North West, are able to call him all sorts of ridiculous names and decry his version of just how things should be done. Hume has over the years assembled vast amounts of knowledge about Rhinos and how to look after them and is willing to share that incredible knowledge for the benefit of all rhinos. Alas, that cannot be, because the keyboard warriors disagree and sadly this is where all of this goes pear shaped and this is why our rhinos are on the proverbial hiding to nothing! As we all know, there is a ban in place preventing the trade of Rhino Horn, yet every single day rhinos are poached (that’s a Euphemism for animal murder) for their horns, this despite the fact that there are large stockpiles of rhino horn in the possession of Government agencies like Sanparks and Ezemvelo and legal stockpiles in the hands of rhino breeders that could have been supplied to that market, bringing vast amounts of money to help protect all rhinos and saving the almost three thousand rhinos that have been killed since 2008. Go figure! So who put that ban in place? It’s a thing called CITES which is a treaty amongst Nations that is supposed to control the illicit trade of wild life and plants. The trouble is, is that this CITES thing has been infiltrated by all sorts of people who have vested interests and agendas, these interests and agendas all serving the people and not the animals, especially our rhinos. Yes there is a ban in place, but similarly, there is a market that operates daily and is fed by the poachers, it could be fed legally by the stockpiles and rhino breeders, but that would not serve the participants in what has become the lucrative business of being an Animal Rightist supporting the totally ineffective CITES ban. Without the emotion and heartstring pulling power of the ban, all of these groups who control CITES would not be able to get donations for the fight against trade, register members who will donate stupidly forever and those who make up the secretariat at CITES wouldn’t have their cushy jobs. Without all of that, South Africa, who are the custodians of 80% of the worlds rhinos, could get on with the important job of looking after those rhinos with a well financed program, encouraging the breeding and expansion of both our Black and White species, it’s sort of a no brainer. Along with the international Ban, we have here in SA ,a temporary Moratorium in place which doesn’t allow trade in Rhino Horn at all locally, with all sorts of agreements saying that under certain conditions this moratorium will be lifted. However, whenever the conditions are close to being met, somehow those goal posts get shifted, and the moratorium stays. So we have an international ban in place courtesy of CITES and a Moratorium locally, courtesy of the DEA and all of the keyboard warriors and their acolytes. We also have rampant poaching into an illegal market that grows daily. Over the last couple of days there have been much publicised visits by some Vietnamese Pop celebrities talking about lofty things like Demand Reduction and how one felt the heart beat of a living rhino. All good stuff, but similarly in those same last few days, information has come to hand about the proliferation of Rhino Horn Dealers in Viet Nam with the accompanying video evidence that was handed to CITES, TRAFFIC and Interpol almost a year ago with absolutely nothing having been done except 1004 rhinos being taken out last year and 277 this year (I’m sure that figure is well over 300 already!), yet we believe the nonsense given us about Vietnamese pop stars. Reality is that until Mozambique has the will, the Laws and the capability to stop the poachers, the Industry that is Masingir will continue, more rhinos will die! Not until we can gain control of that currently illegal market will that change. The keyboard warriors need to face that reality and need to stop painting pictures that are simply not true to the public at large, they need to face reality and allow our rhinos to be safe. CITES with its vested interests needs to be curtailed, the Moratorium needs to be lifted and the controlled trade of horns needs to be allowed. Most of all, our rhinos need to be given the best chance possible and we can’t while these bans are in place. The Animal Rights groups and the bans are the drivers that are killing our rhinos, not a single Rhino needs to die, get rid of those bans now!
Posted on: Thu, 17 Apr 2014 11:20:06 +0000
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