Legalising International Trade in Rhino Horn ???

[Richprins]

I don't quite get how Simon's opinion piece links translocating rhino to legalising trade?
But ja, one big problem is government corruption at all levels. That includes the present huge stockpile slowly disappearing, unfortunately, so caught between a rock and a hard place!

[Lisbeth]

WESSA -Trade Portfolio Meeting

This week rhino owners, conservation NGOS and other stakeholders had a chance to address the Rhino Horn Trade Proposal Committee of Inquiry with their support or concerns for re-opening of international trade in rhino horn. WESSA (the Wildlife and Environment Society of South Africa) voiced strong concerns against trade as it risks exposing our few remaining rhinos to heightened poaching pressure.

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The Department of Environmental Affairs (DEA) is considering requesting international wildlife trade regulator CITIES to allow restricted trade in rhino horn. It has established the Committee of Inquiry, a panel of trade, law and conservation experts to advise it on this proposal. DEA’s stance on this matter was evident when they elected a panel heavily weighted with pro-trade advisors, but later included more no-trade proponents after many conservation NGOs complained of its obvious bias. On 26 and 27 March the Committee of Inquiry heard public submissions from stakeholders and concerned organisations on this proposal that will have far reaching implications for conservation, community development and international relations.
WESSA warns that the current trade proposal carries an unacceptably high risk of being corrupted by the poaching syndicates and illegal horn traders, and that re-opening legal trade will encourage a growth in horn consumer demand and speculation buying. This will undoubtedly exacerbate rhino poaching above current levels, as was the case with the CITES approved once-off sales of elephant ivory in 1999 and 2008. Those ivory sales were intended to undercut the illegal ivory trade prices and hence discourage poaching, as well as to divert the illegal trade revenue into legally benefiting the conservation agencies that are protecting elephants. This is what pro-traders also intended with rhino horn trade. But global evidence shows that the very opposite occurred, with considerable stockpiles of poached ivory being laundered through loopholes in the legal ivory sales chain. It also relaxed social acceptance of ivory ownership in consumer countries, which in turn stimulated market demand for ivory. The Born Free Foundation reports that between 2008 and 2013 an estimated 30,000 and 50,000 elephants were poached each year.
WESSA is convinced that the South African authorities, authorities of other range and consumer states and CITES are highly unlikely to achieve the capacity and mechanisms needed to prevent the same situation happening through the legalising of rhino horn trade. Not even the extremely tightly controlled Kimberly Process has managed to adequately suppress the entry of blood diamonds into legal markets, nor has the severe South African copper trading restrictions prevented widespread copper theft. WESSA does not believe that the criminal syndicates will passively react to the threat posed by legalised horn trade. They are more likely to succeed in corrupting the proposed central horn selling organisation (CSO), to launder their illegal stockpiles.
Part of the proposed trading mechanism is for the CSO to sell horn at a regulated, discounted price, set low enough to discourage poaching and undercut illegal horn traders. The ivory sales example, where the supplier sale price was also set low, evidenced that ivory purchase prices for the ivory carving factories and that of the end products remained fairly constant, but with an increased price for poached ivory. Similarly, the foreign market for rhino horn price is predicted to remain so high as to still encourage widespread poaching of rhinos.
Pro-trade proponents argue that a CSO monopoly selling to a cartel of Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) suppliers will be able to drive the price of horn down, which will reduce the appetite speculators now have for buying horn. WESSA is not in any way convinced that the TMC suppliers would sell at a much lower price than what they can currently get for it now – the price is likely to stay high enough to encourage poaching and speculation buying. If end consumer prices remain high, illegal suppliers will remain in business, just like with illegal cigarette smuggling.
Internationally traditional medicines sales are fading due to the availability of cheaper synthetic modern medicines, which are favoured especially by younger generations. Stimulating legal horn trade could set back this natural consumer trend which is acting in favour of endangered wildlife. Furthermore, creating legal access to horn risks reawakening demand in older markets, such as Taiwan, Japan, Singapore, and Yemen, where demand for rhino horn was prevalent in the 1970s and 1980s and has since decreased. If demand grows again in these markets, it will put upward pressure on the horn price, incentivising poaching. And it is not just South African rhino populations that DEA’s proposal places at such high risk, but also that of Indian, Javan, northern white, and Sumatran rhinoceros species. DEA’s trade proposal risks compromising the concerted international efforts and resources already made towards conserving these endangered species.
WESSA supports the principle of sustainable utilisation of natural resources. We recognise that the protection of rhino is incurring substantial costs, both financial and human, to public and private reserves stocking them. We support the right of game reserves to financially benefit from the consumptive and non-consumptive use of their wildlife resources; provided that it sustainable, humane, ethical and in accordance with best practice principals and relevant legislation. WESSA believes that revenue from ecotourism, increased hunting (where such is genuine, sustainable and without permitting the export of trophy horns or other rhino body parts), live rhino sales, as well as other uses of rhino products – such as innovative products like rhino horn infused wines and spa treatments– can offset rhino management costs.
Research conducted in 2014 amongst communities living in and alongside the Great Limpopo Trans-frontier Park, and that of experts working in this park, has illuminated concerning community attitudes towards the park and that of poaching wildlife. These include common feelings of being economically marginalised, anger towards the park, seeing huge financial and social status incentives for participating in or supporting poaching and perceived widespread corruption amongst parks and police officials acting in support of rhino poaching. Until community development and anti-poaching efforts are ramped up, and communities nearest the parks see it in their best interest to protect endangered animals, gaining greater traction through efforts to bring an end to poaching will be difficult.
Instead of going through the lengthy process of trying to get rhino trade approved,WESSA urges that the DEA and SANParksshould rather address the more immediate issues of the affected communities who are facilitating the costly poaching of rhino in direct competition to their conservation efforts and investments. Responses to these community issues should not be dependent on income from rhino horn sales, rather they need to be conceived with community direction, implemented independently from political interference and be held accountable to their communities.
The horn trade proposal is complex, involving international-level legal systems, crime syndicates and foreign cooperation agreements; national-level issues of taxation opportunities, conservation budgets and endemic corruption across state agencies. It also interfaces with the local communities’ relationships with reserves and the status-seeking adventurism of youth at risk. The priority is to address local community factors which, unless effectively challenged, will see rhino populations fall to critical levels, before any trade mechanism can be put in place. WESSA hopes that the Committee and the Minister of Environmental Affairs will heed the submissions of stakeholders in which they caution that this down-listing proposal is premature. South Africa does not yet have a mature and accountable democracy that has a reasonable chance of implementing a horn trading system that can sufficiently restrict illegal trade. To trade now is to risk too much.

[Toko]

Experts: Trading rhino horn will only increase poaching risks

2015-06-24 15:52
Andreas Wilson-Späth

A group of international experts comprised of over 30 conservationists, academics, journalists, authors and lawyers from Africa, Europe, Asia and America has warned the Committee of Inquiry commissioned by the South African government to evaluate the feasibility of an international trade in rhino horn that even the suggestion of trade would almost certainly increase the risk of poaching.

Controversial committee

The Committee of Inquiry was established by the Department of Environmental Affairs (DEA) in February. If it recommends that trading rhino horn internationally will be beneficial to rhino conservation, South Africa will table a resolution to that effect at the 17th Conference of Parties (CoP17) to the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) in Johannesburg at the end of next year. The international trade in rhino horn has been banned under CITES since 1977.

Critics have questioned the composition of the Committee of Inquiry as being dominated by pro-trade advocates and while the Minister of Environmental Affairs, Edna Molewa, has stated that no official position on the issue will be taken until the committee concludes its deliberations, she has previously indicated strong support for trade.

Trade would stimulate demand in Asia

In an open letter addressed to Molewa and Nana Magomola, the chairperson of the Committee of Inquiry, the group of experts cautions that South Africa’s decisions will have far-reaching repercussions around the world.

They emphasise that if South Africa were to propose a reopening of international trade at CoP17, this would “almost certainly increase current as well as future rhino poaching risk”.

It would undermine efforts to reduce demand in countries like Vietnam and China, where rhino horn is used in traditional medical practices and is considered by some as a valuable status symbol. Legalising trade would remove the stigma that is increasingly attached to buying and owning rhino horn in these countries, legitimising it as a commodity and stimulating demand.

The experts’ letter suggests that a proposal to trade the horn of the southern white rhino, the vast majority of which live in South Africa, would result in dire consequences for the world’s other, much more vulnerable species, including the northern white rhino and the Javan rhino. It does not consider this option as a responsible or viable solution for protecting a species that is currently “under unprecedented poaching pressure”. On the contrary, it would open the door for poached rhino horn to be laundered into the legal market.

The open letter comes at a time when a group of South African private rhino owners are taking government to court over the current moratorium on domestic trade in rhino horn within South Africa, which was instituted in 2009.

A question of ethics

In Vietnam, rhino horn consumption has experienced a massive upswing in recent times, not least because of a rumour – completely unsubstantiated by any scientific evidence – that the substance has potent cancer-fighting abilities. Spread by the unscrupulous criminal syndicates behind the poaching and trafficking of rhino horn, this myth has led many desperate and often poor Vietnamese to spend large amounts of money on a bogus cure to diseases that are killing them or their loved ones.

The experts question the ethical implications for a government that would knowingly promote the trade in such a product at the expense of the well-being of people suffering from acute and chronic illnesses. In effect, they ask whether it would be moral for the South African government to foster a world market in snake oil.

Globally, there continues to be strong and widespread official opposition to legal trade. If South Africa were to propose its re-establishment but fail to garner sufficient support from other CITES members – a highly likely outcome – the authors of the letter point out that it would suffer significant reputational damage in the international sphere.

Faulty assumptions

The authors express concern that there has not been a sufficiently full and open discussion of all aspects of the legal trade debate and that important information and expertise from various stakeholders is not being taken into due consideration. They suggest that the arguments for the supposed benefits of trade are unsupported, hypothetical and based on flawed assumptions and a lack of real scientific evidence.

The authors of the letter believe that the underlying causes of the current poaching crisis are “criminality and demand” and that “the real solutions are elimination of demand and working to strengthen law enforcement and successful prosecution of poachers, middlemen and end-traders”.

It is worth noting that in a number of regulatory, legislative and policy documents published in recent years, the South African government has offered an interpretation of the right to the “ecologically sustainable development and use of natural resources” enshrined in the Bill of Rights of the Constitution that is decidedly pro-trade in orientation when it comes to wildlife conservation.

The draft Biodiversity Management Plan (BMP) for the White Rhinoceros (Ceratotherium simum) in South Africa, which was gazetted by Minister Molewa on the 31st of March, for instance, uncritically accepts the arguments of the pro-trade lobby while giving virtually no credence to contrary views.

It accepts the premise that legalisation of international trade in rhino horn would result in reduced poaching – an assumption that has been discredited by Mexican economist Alejandro Nadal who is one of the signatories of the letter and whose research shows that the economics of markets in endangered wildlife are far too poorly understood to make such predictions with any degree of certainty. He believes that legalised trade may in fact have the opposite effect of increased poaching.

The group of private rhino owners challenging the domestic trade moratorium in court also make the flawed assumption that trade would reduce poaching, but in their case, even a detailed report commissioned by the DEA and published in 2014 concluded that trade within South Africa in the absence of legalised international trade would very likely have detrimental effects.

The draft BMP includes a telling articulation of government’s interpretation of the sustainable use doctrine, positing that because rhino conservation is becoming increasingly costly while “the significant value of the rhino horn trade is currently captured entirely by organised crime”, it is time that “rhinos need to start paying more for themselves”.

Makes one wonder if the call for trade is motivated by a genuine concern for reducing poaching or by a wish to extract greater financial profits from rhinos as a “sustainable natural resource”.

At the time of the publication of this article, the authors of the open letter had received acknowledgment of its receipt, but no official response from the Committee of Inquiry, despite repeated requests for a reply.

[Lisbeth]

Makes one wonder if the call for trade is motivated by a genuine concern for reducing poaching or by a wish to extract greater financial profits from rhinos as a “sustainable natural resource”.

Exactly!!

“sustainable natural resource”.

[Flutterby]

Ditto Lis!

[Mel]

Difficult topic... and I'm sure whatever is done (or not done, i.e. legalising the selling), it'll result in: "If we only had..." once the last rhino is gone.

[Richprins]

The Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES), which regulates global wildlife trade, banned international rhino horn trade in 1977, but South Africa allowed legal rhino horn trade to continue internally and only banned the export of horn. The 2008 increase in poaching led the South African government to place a national moratorium on rhino horn trade in early 2009. Despite the still-standing moratorium, the South African Department of Environmental Affairs (DEA) has admitted that South Africa is facing a major rhino poaching crisis. In October 2010, the DEA commissioned a feasibility study to determine the viability of legalising rhino horn trade in South Africa, with the research report published in 2014. Fraser is a vocal supporter of legalisation. He believes the moratorium and trade ban are not mini-mising demand, and he does not think legal trade could be any worse than the current situation. The majority of South African private rhino owners who were interviewed by the DEA believe it is the only financially sustainable option. International trade could fund anti-poaching programmes and further incentivise private owners to protect rhinos.

The DEA predicts that legalising rhino horn trade both locally and internationally may decrease rhino poaching in South Africa, but that they must occur simultaneously. “Sixty percent of rhino experts didn’t agree with lifting the national moratorium if international trade wasn’t also legalised,” says the 2014 DEA research report. With no end-user market in South Africa, national legalisation would result in the horn being smuggled out of the country and sold on the black market. This is especially true because South Africa’s current permitting controls are insufficient to prevent horn laundering. Government however fears that such illegal activities may tarnish South Africa’s reputation and may be detrimental to future negotiations around international trade. Government also believes that local legalisation without international legalisation may send mixed messages to end-users. South Africa also lacks the capacity to regulate national trade in South Africa.

Fraser already dehorns his rhinos in an attempt to counter poaching. More than half of the private rhino owners interviewed by the DEA said they would also do so if domestic trade were legalised. “Will it stop rhino poaching? We don’t know, but have we tried it yet? No! I believe if you are a cocaine dealer you know that you can go to prison for life for cocaine dealing and now suddenly the government says you can buy cocaine legally, people will buy it legally. Sure, there will still be poaching, but if they can buy it at a legal auction, at least we will have a paper trail. We need to legalise rhino horn trade for five to 10 years and then stop it. Then at least we will know how the system works,” Fraser says.

Rhinos need inherent value to survive, argues Fraser. Legalising the trade would make live rhinos more valuable than dead ones. Rhino horn is renewable and a legal supply may provide more horn than poaching. He references the sustainable use paradigm, namely that if something can be used, it can be saved. “We will never run out of sheep. We will never run out of cattle. They will always be there because it’s a source of food. Why can’t we do the same with rhino? Why can’t we see a couple of rhinos walk around without horns for 10 or 15 years, to save the species?” he continues, looking concerned. Fraser goes on to quote John Hume – the world’s largest private rhino owner, a South African who owns 1,060 rhinos or five percent of the rhino population – as saying that in 1960 there were three game farms and less than 700,000 head of game in South Africa. After the government permitted farmers to own game and allowed commercial hunting, the numbers rose to over 20 million by 2014. He is, however, aware that wild rhinos are a large source of income due to their tourist appeal and that ecotourism funds conservation. No one will fly thousands of kilometres to see a dehorned rhino, but perhaps it is a temporary contingency plan South Africa should take to avoid the species’ extinction.


Conservationists tout efforts to revive South America’s vicuña, a relative of alpacas and llamas, as an example of a successful sustainable use paradigm. The species was almost driven to extinction in the 1960s because of a demand for its wool. A three-decade moratorium on vicuña wool trading followed by highly regulated population management practices allowed the population to recover enough for sustainable and legal trade of vicuña wool to resume. Critics argue that such a solution will not work for rhinos because there was a larger population of vicuñas at the start of the sustainable use programme than the present population of rhinos. Furthermore, today’s more globalised world makes it more difficult to curtail trafficking. Others indicate that the greater availability and affordability of vicuña wool has not stopped an uptick in the poaching of wild vicuña populations over the last decade. Sustainable use needs to be considered on a case-by-case basis, argue critics. For example, while crocodile farming has been successful in decreasing poaching, the opening of the ivory trade increased poaching of elephants, and this may also be the case for rhinos.

Dehorning rhinos might result in similar success by providing horns for the legal market, however some poachers shoot dehorned rhinos out of spite, so as not to track them a second time, or to retrieve the horn stub. Fraser is accused of supporting dehorning because of the potential profit. Some private rhino owners are suspected of poaching their own stock. “People say, you just want to make money. Sure, I want to make money!” Fraser retorts. “It’s going to possibly save the rhino and I can make money, sure why not?”

Sale prices of white rhino in South Africa have dropped since the 2009 moratorium. Experts believe that legalising local and international trade in rhino horn will increase the value of live rhinos significantly. “There’s no market for them now. It’s sad to see that a rhino worth R800,000 [$69,000] will not sell for more than R300,000 [$26,000] at an auction – if he sells at all. While a sable sells for R12 million [$1.03 million], rhinos get taken off the auction list because they can’t even get the reserve price,” laments Fraser. Keeping rhinos has become a financial liability and security risk. Private rhino owners and their employees are held at gun point and sometimes killed, while security services and rhino insurance costs have increased. The DEA admits that some private rhino owners may consider taking legal action against the South African government if the moratorium is not lifted.

Fraser explains how rhino horn farming would work. Rhinos would roam freely on large, fenced, privately owned farms and their natural feeding would be supplemented with molasses and bone marrow. While there is little data about breeding rates in semi-captive environments, Fraser has reduced the inter-calf birthing period of his rhinos from 36 to 24 months through the supplemented feeding scheme. The time to do so is now, Fraser urges, because the long gestation period of around 16 months means it would take five years for an adult rhino population to produce a generation mature enough for horn harvesting. A rhino’s horn grows back within 18 to 24 months after harvesting, and an average rhino could wield up to 70 kilograms of horn in its lifetime. The DEA says that the practice of horn farming along with natural mortality could generate up to 3,606 kilograms of horn each year.

According to Fraser, private rhino owners in conjunction with Nature Conservation and the South African police would need to establish a permit and tracking system for dehorned rhinos whereby an authorised vetrenarian would microchip the horn, which would be sent to a stockpile along with the paperwork and confirmation from RhODIS, a rhino DNA profiling database of living and poached rhinos. A central clearing house could help to regulate the global industry.

The cost of dehorning rhinos depends on a number of factors, one of which is whether a helicopter or vehicle is used. Fraser pays around $3,000 to dehorn his 12 rhinos using a helicopter. On average it takes approximately 15 minutes to dehorn a sedated rhino and microchip the horn. “The first time he did it the vet was crying,” says Fraser “but if you leave it on, it’s like leaving a bull’s-eye on him.”

Fraser agrees that dehorning wild black rhino could be detrimental because they use their horn to fight and forage for food, but he claims that monitoring of dehorned rhinos has shown no change in behaviour or aggression in dominant males. Further, intensive behaviour monitoring could help todetermine whether dehorning affects mate competition and reproduction and also whether rhinos used for horn harvesting could be reintroduced into the wild at a later stage.



http://venturesafrica.com/features/goin ... xtinction/

[Flutterby]

Court overturns ban in domestic rhino trading

2015-11-26 13:42
News24 Correspondent

Pretoria - A full bench of the High Court in Pretoria has overturned government's moratorium on rhino horn trading because there was not enough adequate public consultation.

Judges Francis Legodi, Vivian Tlhapi and Myron Dewrance granted an order to rhino breeders John Hume and Johan Krüger to set aside the moratorium, which came into effect early in 2009, because of "substantial non-compliance" with the consultative and participatory process by members of the public contemplated by the National Environmental Management Biodiversity Act.

Hume is the largest rhino breeder in the world, but said he would have to dispose of his herd of 1 200 rhinos if the open-ended moratorium remained in effect.

The moratorium was put in place to back up an international ban on rhino horn trading until regulations on how to deal with rhino had been put in place.

Hume and Krüger maintained the moratorium should be set aside because Environment Minister Edna Molewa did not give proper notice of her intentions to members of the public and South Africa's 400 registered rhino breeders and owners.

Complex reasons for poaching

The minister maintained the moratorium was a legitimate and rational conservation measure based on extensive and wide consultation.

Molewa conceded that the ban might be considered as one of the factors contributing to increased rhino poaching, but said there were other complex reasons involved.

This included dwindling rhino populations in neighbouring countries, which made South Africa an attractive destination and improved economic conditions in Asia, which meant more people could afford to buy rhino horn, leading to increased demand.

She pointed out that the moratorium was put in place because the domestic market and real permits were being used to smuggle rhino horn out of the country, which was easy where stockpiles of rhino horn were not identified.

The moratorium was kept in place so that the department could check and mark rhino horn through regulations and conduct an audit of existing stockpiles to know "who has what", the Minister maintained.

Judge Legodi said the level of rhino poaching since the moratorium was "quite alarming".

"For example, in 2008 before the moratorium was imposed, the numbers of rhinos poached were just below 100, in 2009 between 100 and 200, in 2010 just below 400, in 2011 just below 500."

The updated report on behalf of Hume is as follows: In 2012 the number of rhino poached was just above 600 in 2013 about 1 000 and about 1 200 in 2014.

Effective implementation of measures

"The exact percentage attributable to the moratorium is not known, but clearly its role in adding to the surge in poaching cannot be excluded.

"Furthermore, the extent of smuggling or illegal export of rhino horns due to lack of implementation of the applicable measures is not known.

"The next question is, on what basis should this court suspend the setting aside of the moratorium."

"Put differently, what disastrous implication would be brought about by the immediate lifting of the moratorium? I cannot think of any.

"The solution appears to lie in the effective implementation of applicable and envisages measures," Judge Legodi said.

[Flutterby]

SA judge lifts domestic ban on rhino horn trade

2015-11-26 12:22

Pretoria - A South African judge on Thursday lifted a domestic ban on trade in rhino horns, in a direct challenge to government policy put in place in 2009 to try to stem rocketing poaching numbers.

The government gave no immediate reaction to the judge's ruling, which was delivered in the Pretoria High Court after two South African game breeders fought a legal battle to overturn the moratorium.

The court decision came ahead of a meeting in Johannesburg next year of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (Cites), which could lift the global ban.

South Africa's rhino poaching epidemic saw a record 1 215 rhino killed last year for their horn, and some private rhino breeders say selling legally harvested horns could stifle the lucrative black market trade.

"The moratorium on domestic trade in rhino horns is hereby reviewed and set aside," said the ruling from judge Francis Legodi.

The environment ministry said no decision had been made on whether to appeal.

"Our lawyer is now studying the judgement," ministry spokesperson Roopa Singh told AFP.

John Hume and Johan Kruger, the two game breeders who launched the legal action, say it is their constitutional right to sell rhino horn, what they describe as a renewable resource.

"It is a total success. Factually it is legal to trade rhino horns in South Africa," said Hume's lawyer G H Heyns. "There is no moratorium in place."

South Africa is home to around 20 000 rhino, or 80% of the world population.

The number of rhino killed rocketed from 13 in 2007 to 1 215 last year.

The animals are slaughtered by poachers for their horn, which is used as a traditional medicine in East Asia.

[Flutterby]

But where is the domestic market for rhino horn? Surely the horn then still has to be smuggled out of the country?