BAN THE SOUTH AFRICAN TRADE IN RHINO HORN, THE GLOBAL TRADE IN ENDANGERED SPECIES PARTS

BAN THE SOUTH AFRICAN TRADE IN RHINO HORN, THE GLOBAL TRADE IN ENDANGERED SPECIES PARTS

Started
9 February 2017
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Signatures: 732,974Next Goal: 1,000,000
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Why this petition matters

Started by RHINOS IN AFRICA

HISTORY OF THIS PETITION 

On the 5th April 2017 the late, Edna Molewa, Minister of the Environment for South Africa announced that she planned to legalise the trade in rhino horn domestically and allow the export of rhino horn internationally for 'personal purposes'.

Instead of re-instituting the moratorium on the domestic trade in rhino horn using the correct procedures, Edna Molewa questionably made the decision to take on the the rhino horn breeders and rhino horn traders in a number of widely publicised court cases at huge expense to the South African government.

Edna Molewa was appointed by the former President, Jacob Zuma.  During his tenure in office various South African government departments and state owned and run entities have been accused, and found guilty of corruption at the highest levels.

Informed economists, scientists, wildlife trade experts and wildlife conservationists feared from the onset that the implementation process of the proposed permits for the legalisation of domestic trade could be problematic, especially because of the high levels of corruption. 

On the 2nd of May 2021 Minister Barbara Creecy, the minister of forestry, fisheries and the environment in South Africa released a 582 page report from her high-level panel of experts who she appointed in 2019.  This panel of experts was appointed to review policies relating to the management, breeding, hunting and trade of lions, rhinos, leopards and elephants. 

The high-level panel of experts recommended that the trade in captive rhino horn should not be approved before the Rhino Committee of Inquiry recommendations are met. This committee was tasked several years ago to investigate the feasibility of the rhino horn trade. 

Rhino horn farmers, the breeders of rhino said that the aforementioned report was devastating for their industry.

These rhino horn farmers have complained that they have had difficulties with obtaining permits that they have been stymied by the South African government and the bureaucracy of the CITES system.

The content of a Report, which was published in December 2021, called Where Have All the Rhino Gone by the EMS Foundation, should serve to remind everyone that many South Africans still involved with the wildlife industry have been involved and have been caught conducting illegal activities within consumptive wildlife industry. 

On the 27th February 2024, Minister Barbara Creecy issued a media statement confirming that an alarming number of 397 rhino were killed in KwaZulu Natal in 2023, the highest number on record for this province. A total of 499 rhinos were killed throughout South Africa last year. 

Explanations for the devastating loss of thousands of rhinos in South Africa, particularly over the past few years, were highlighted in the 2021 EMS Foundation publication of Where Have All the Rhinos Gone? We determined that the significant loss of rhinos are not only due to the illegal killing of rhinos, particularly over the past two decades but, these unacceptable numbers are also the result of: (i) poor, problematic policy and management decisions; (ii) the direct involvement of some of South Africa’s professional trophy hunters, corrupt members of the South African Police Service, some rhino breeders, crooked veterinarians, and nature conservation officials; and (iii) porous South African border control. 

The second report, published in February 2024, entitled South Africa’s Rhino Horn Stockpiles: Intrinsic to Illegal Trade, provides further evidence of how South Africa’s rhino horn stockpiles are driving illegal trade in rhino horn.  

The Report reminds us of the details of incidents where rhino breeders and their industry colleagues have, since the publication of the first report, been implicated in the illegal sale of hundreds of rhino horn, suspicious deaths of rhinos and in the possession of unmarked rhino horn.

We are living in the sixth extinction. It is inconceivable that the international rhino horn trade which has been banned for 47 years, will ever be tolerated. Furthermore, we are currently witnessing the implosion of the rhino farming industry. The Report brings into sharp focus, South Africa’s pro-trade policy framework and its seemingly unwavering support for the questionable model of intensively breeding rhinos for horn production. 



 

 

 

 

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Decision-Makers

  • CITES
  • Ms Magdel BoshoffDepartment of Environmental Affairs
  • Minister Barbara CreecyMinister of Environment, Forestry and Fisheries