‘SA’S policy drives rhino horn trade’
Stockpiling instead of destroying rhino horns suggests the South African government is reluctant to extinguish a market for these items
The so-called “leakage” from government and private rhino horn stockpiles is fuelling wildlife crime, rhino killings and endangering people’s lives. This is the contention by the nonprofit EMS Foundation, which argued in a recent report that rhino horns from government and private stockpiles are entering the illegal international market.
The foundation’s report said that since 2016, at least 974kg of rhino horn seized in 11 incidents were confirmed as originating from the theft or illegal sale of horns from legal private and government stockpiles. These incidents represent 18% of all rhino horns seized during the period 2016 to 2021.
“The urgent question that the government must answer is why is it allowing the stockpiling of rhino horns? Particularly because, by doing so, it is de facto placing a dangerously contentious value to the horns in the vain hope that the international market will be reopened,” it said.
This, in turn, is endangering the lives of the people who are protecting rhinos, encouraging the black market and “bankrupting” public and private reserves while they attempt to keep their rhinos secure.
The international trade in rhino horn has been banned since 1977 among the 184 member countries of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Fauna and Flora (Cites).
Most Cites’ state parties have shown no appetite for lifting bans on the trade in rhino horns, the report said. “Thus, the largest breeder of rhinos and harvester of rhino horn in the world [John Hume] has found the economic model upon which he and others have gambled, flawed and unsustainable.”
Government-owned stockpiles consist of horns from rhinos that died naturally; have been killed illegally in state-owned wildlife reserves; were dehorned; and were seized during enforcement operations.
Private citizens who own rhinos are legally allowed to stockpile rhino horns from dehorning procedures and from carcasses of rhinos who have died naturally, under strict conditions.
Some rhino farmers and breeders and their industry colleagues have been implicated in the illegal sale of hundreds of rhino horn, the suspicious deaths of rhinos and for possession of unmarked rhino horns.
A 2022 Wildlife Justice Commission report said intelligence shows that diverting harvested horns from privately owned stockpiles has also become a source of rhino horns in illegal trade, the foundation said.
Official figures on rhino horn stockpiles are “conflicting, inconsistent, untrustworthy and cannot be verified”, it added, noting there is little transparency about the country’s rhino horn stockpiles.
“The government does not routinely make rhino horn stockpile figures available and when this information is made available, it raises serious concerns, which bring South Africa’s management of rhino horn stockpiles and their monitoring and auditing processes and procedures severely into focus.”
This also raises questions about whether South Africa is effectively analysing its data.
The report noted how a comparison of rhino horn stockpile figures provided by the department of forestry, fisheries and the environment for 2019 and 2020 shows that in 17 months, the state’s stockpiles consisted of 4 006 fewer horns than in 2019 and that the private stockpiles for the same period was down by 563.
Yet, according to the official figures provided, the weight of the private stockpiles supposedly more than doubled in the same period.
The country was linked to half of all rhino horns seized globally over the past 10 years and South Africa continues to be a key source for the illicit supply chain. Although rhino poaching rates across Africa have decreased since the peak in 2015, they remain high, at equivalent levels seen at the start of the poaching crisis in 2012.
Africa recorded 2 707 incidences of illegal killings of rhinos from 2018 to 2021, with 90% taking place in South Africa.
The report noted how for decades there have been warnings that the illegal supply of local rhino horn from actual or potential horn stockpiles could exceed the supply from wild populations of rhino, particularly if appropriate stockpile measures were not put in place, and that existing deficiencies in rhino horn stockpile management present a major loophole for illegal trade.
“It is clear that despite several workshops and the development of various strategy documents and action plans in relation to the trade in rhino body parts, including plans to improve the monitoring of rhino horn stockpiles and mitigate the escalation of the illegal trade in rhino horns, many of the key recommendations have not been implemented and, given South Africa’s current political milieu, are unlikely to be effectively implemented.”
The South African rhino horn stockpiles represent a major risk for the effective combating of the illegal trade of rhino horn. Furthermore, rhino horn stockpiles are growing because dehorning has become the norm, with the Kruger National Park adopting a policy of dehorning in 2019.
According to official figures provided to the EMS Foundation in 2019, more than 55% of rhino horns are held in legal private stockpiles and, logically, the large stockpiles play a role in illegal trafficking. “Not only do legal stockpiles represent the largest potential supply of horns for exploitation in the illegal trade, but the ever-increasing privately held stockpiles significantly increase that potential.”
The country’s rhino horn stockpiles have no conservation value or in situ benefit and instead present a danger of both theft and trafficking.
“The rapid accumulation of rhino horns, lack of transparency and oversight of stockpiles, and a legal domestic market contribute to the movement of rhino horns from stockpiles to the illegal trade.”
The report noted that because South Africa perpetuates the perception of rhino horn as a marketable commodity and “defends speculative and risky trade in an illegal product” it is contributing to illegal trade because the theft of stockpiled rhino horns into illegal trade will only continue.
Instead of destroying the rhino horn after removal, the country has chosen to continue the risk to the diminishing rhino population by “driving the perception that the horn has value and stockpiling it, so they say, under strict regulations and security”. This is despite the evidence that the country has failed to secure the removed rhino horn in stockpiles and “cannot safeguard rhino horn from being trafficked and entering the illegal market.”
Stockpiling and the legal domestic trade provide a laundering channel for illegally traded horns, the report noted.
“Moreover, the dark web of interaction between criminal syndicates, elites and private traders suggests that holding massive rhino horn stockpiles can only lead to further criminality that undermines rhino protection and conservation.”
South Africa is therefore “perpetuating the black-market trade of rhino horn” and cannot prevent leakage from the stockpiles into the illegal trade. Rather, the country should abandon the idea of future trading in rhino horn and encourage other rhino range states to do the same, the foundation said.
The country should rather embrace rhino horn stockpile destruction as an anti-poaching, anti-trafficking, and demand reduction tool to contribute to the ethical protection of rhino populations in Africa and Asia and to mitigate their extinction. “Doing so will send a strong signal that South Africa is firmly committed to preserving and protecting rhinos, and to truly ensuring their welfare and well-being.”