Molewa mum on poaching
As rumours surface about a fellow cabinet minister’s dealings in rhino horn trafficking
THURSDAY FEBRUARY 09 2017
MINISTER of Environmental Affairs Edna Molewa has been tightlipped about rhino poaching statistics for 2016, amid claims of rhino horn trafficking within her own government.
Minister of State Security David Mahlobo was implicated in trafficking rhino horn late last year.
This week the DA called for the Independent Police Investigative Directorate to enquire into Mahlobo’s involvement.
The DEA has not published rhino poaching statistics since September 2016. By then, 702 rhino had been poached.
The DEA has failed to provide any further statistics on the carnage continuing throughout the country. Continuous data, say conservationists, is important to the protection of the species.
Allison Thomson, founder of OSCAP (Outraged South African Citizens Against Rhino Poaching) believes the DEA may be “stalling to let this whole Mahlobo issue die down a bit”. Thomson says Mahlobo is one of the ministers who usually attends Molewa’s press conferences “so I think they are feeling a little awkward at the moment”.
According to Eleanor Momberg, acting director for External Communication at the DEA, the minister will be releasing the statistics for 2016 “in due course” but adds that a press conference may be arranged for the first week of February.
Albi Modise of DEA again confirmed yesterday that no date had been set for the release of the statistics.
Despite the obvious procrastination, The Lowvelder reported that 2016 figures for the Kruger Park were inadvertently placed on record at the Nelspruit Magistrates Court on Wednesday last week as part of aggravating factors in support of a sentence for convicted poacher Simon Ngubane.
The senior state advocate, Isabet Erwee, said the figures for the national park provide an indication that a “total onslaught on the rhino population” was still in full force.
Her records showed that a total of 622 rhinos were poached in the Kruger National Park in 2016 and a further 21 since the beginning of this year.
Although the number for the Kruger National Park in 2016 dropped by 204 compared to 2015, it’s still a significant amount of dead rhinos.
Rhino poaching has increased dramatically elsewhere, notably in KwaZuluNatal where at least 159 rhinos were killed in 2016, compared to 104 in 2015. Provincial rhino security head Cedric Coetzee told SABC News last year: “There are influxes or displacement of poaching from Gauteng, Mpumalanga, Limpopo and so forth. So the syndicates are getting to use the whole country rather than staying in a single area.”
Nationally, there’s a belief of a downward trend in the number of rhino poached but with the spike in poaching in Kwa-Zulu-Natal this trend may be nullified.Thomson calculates that at least 1 105 were killed in 2016, a figure not significantly different from 1 175 in 2015.
Another worrying statistic is the revelation that conviction rates are agonisingly low despite an increase of arrests for the year and a positive spin by Molewa in May last year. She had claimed a successful conviction rate of 78%, when according to a more thorough analysis it was only 15%.
The problem lies with Molewa’s definition of conviction rates.
Her percentage only takes into account those cases that went to trial and where there was some form of verdict. Her evaluation does not compare the number of prosecutions with the number of arrests.
For example, in 2015 there were 317 arrests but only 54 were prosecuted. In other words, only 17% of those arrested led to prosecutions in 2015.
For the whole of 2016, anti-poaching officials made 281 arrests in the Kruger Park. – Conservation Action Trust