Great news in the conservation battle to save the rhino in South Africa. A well-known philanthropist (the Howard G. Buffett Foundation) has donated R255 million (USD $23.7 million) to fund a three-year programme to combat rhino poaching in South Africa. The programme will focus on saving the rhino in the Kruger National Park which has been subject to some of the worst poaching in the whole of Africa. It will also try out new and untested anti-poaching tactics which can then hopefully be rolled out across other African nations suffering from poaching.
The Kruger National Park in South Africa is home to over 40% of the world’s remaining 22,000 rhinos and is home to the largest single population of rhinos in the world. Sadly it has also been home to the worst poaching crisis in living memory. Since January 2010, 1,383 rhinos have been poached from the park. More than a thousand rhinos were poached in 2013 and 172 have been poached since the beginning of 2014.
Globally rhino poaching increased 5000% between 2007 and 2012, with one killed by a poacher every ten hours. Since 2004 the Central Africa region has lost two-thirds of its elephant population, and last year saw the Western Black Rhino declared extinct.
It is interesting that the South Africa government have been given this money at this time. The UK government hosted an international conference on illegal wildlife trade only a month ago (13 Feb. 2014). The conference brought together global leaders to help eradicate illegal wildlife trade and better protect the world’s most iconic species from the threat of extinction. The London Declaration contains commitments for practical steps to end the illegal trade in rhino horn, tiger parts and elephant tusks that fuels criminal activity worth over $19 billion each year. Botswana will be hosting a further conference next year to assess how plans are being put into effect. Key states, including Botswana, China, Ethiopia, Indonesia, Tanzania, and Vietnam, alongside the United States and Russia, all signed up to actions that will help eradicate the demand for wildlife products, strengthen law enforcement, and support the development of sustainable livelihoods for communities affected by wildlife crime.
The South African government have been heavily criticised by conservation groups and other nations for their refusal to attend. This caused uproar at the time but the government defended its actions by claiming that they have a different opinion on how to halt the poaching crisis. This injection of funds from the Buffet Foundation may allow the South African government to prove that their ideas do in fact work.
The donation was announced by the foundation, together with the Nature Conservation Trust, and SANParks. The bank who will be handling the funds have agreed to provide favourable banking fees and interest on the funds. Some argue that the funds should be handled free of charge so that no one will be making a profit from this important scheme and many others in the conservation world are concerned that with such huge sums of money involved much may be lost through so called “consultants” fees or corruption. However in general the huge sum of money is very welcomed by all and it should make a massive difference to the conservation battle.
The plan is that the funds will create an Intensive Protection Zone (IPZ) within the Kruger National Park by using sophisticated detection and tracking equipment, strengthened infrastructure on the ground and in the air, to be combined with elite canine units and highly trained ranger teams. Kruger’s IPZ will also serve as a testing ground to inform targeted efforts to combat poaching in these other African regions.
“The scale, complexity, and strategic value of this initiative is truly unprecedented for SANParks, and we believe will be transformative in our ongoing efforts to address poaching and the decimation of the rhino population in Kruger National Park,” said SANParks CEO, David Mabunda. He added that the lessons SANParks hoped to learn could be shared across the continent.
“We would like to assure you, Mr Howard Buffet, that we are determined not to lose this fight. We as South Africa certainly do not intend to capitulate and lose the battle for the survival of key members of the iconic Big Five,” said Minister of Environmental Affairs, Edna Molewa. “We hope that your donation will spur more philanthropists to get involved in such a worthy cause. The rhino of South Africa are important to the whole world,” she added.
Posted by Ruth
