MINISTER DOING THE RIGHT THING BY ALLOWING LIMITED RHINO HORN TRADE

IN RESPONSE to a report in Crime and Courts titled “DEA in 180º turn on domestic rhino horn trade”, Sheree Bega berated Minister Edna Molewa – after two years of opposing the rhino horn trade – for publishing in the Government Gazette that she now proposes that limited trade in rhino horn should be allowed.

Bega is so way off beam that her utterances would be laughable if what she wrote about wasn’t such a tragedy. She quotes an animal rights organisation, outside South Africa, called Global March for Elephants and Rhinos which warned that both elephants and rhinos are facing extinction – a statement made without any corroborating evidence – and that there has been a 300% increase in elephant poaching. None of this is true. Neither our elephants nor our rhinos are facing extinction, although admittedly some elephant populations in west Africa are suffering badly.

In southern Africa, the elephant populations are so large – excessive – in most of our national parks that they are destroying the habitats and causing the extinction not of themselves but of the entire species diversity in the game reserves that support these massive numbers. Good and common sense wildlife management practice prescribes that these overpopulations of elephants should be massively reduced in number – in many cases halved – to save the game reserves from becoming deserts.

So where, why and by whom were these ridiculous assumptions made? They were made by animal rightists whose purpose in life is to abolish all animal uses by man, including trade. And, it seems, Bega is one of them! The decision by Minister Molewa to allow limited sales of rhino horn, for many reasons, is a very good “conservation” move.

Ron Thomson CEO, The True Green Alliance