No sales for legal rhino horn traders

NEARLY three months after its launch, a legal online rhino horn trading facility has not yet sold any horn.

In March, the Private Rhino Owners’ Association launched Rhino Horn Trade Africa (RHTA), describing it as a “groundbreaking initiative” to undermine the illegal horn trade and boost rhino protection.

However, it had sold “nothing so far”, explained Allan Thomson, the chairperson of the RHTA.

“Interest has been significant and we’ve signed up 32 sellers who have horn and are wishing to sell it.

“However, thus far only two sellers have qualified their horn through the necessary DNA process and which we subsequently have available for sale on the site.”

Other sellers, he said, were in the process of having their horn comply with the necessary requirements and obtaining the requisite DNA certificate from the Veterinary Genetics Laboratory at the University of Pretoria at Onderstepoort to ensure that all rhino horn sold was first recorded on the Rhino DNA Index System, or RHODIS® database.

RHTA said it provided a platform for buyers and sellers to trade in “clean” and “humanely acquired horn”.

Interest had been skewed in favour of the seller, said Thomson. “Interest in buying has been muted, but queries are starting to increase. All buying queries are from offshore and are primarily concerned with the ability to export the horn offshore – which clearly they can’t at this stage.”

Last April, the Constitutional Court set aside the moratorium on rhino horn trading, making regulated domestic trade legal. However, it remains illegal to trade internationally under the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (Cites).

“We always anticipated muted interest from buyers in the formative stages, as for the past decade there has never been a legal buyer. Any existing buyer would naturally be reticent of disclosing his identity.”

Thomson added “all involved are on a learning curve, as no previous legal rhino horn has been sold for some time now.”

In a recent statement, the association urged investors “in search of new investment frontiers” to consider RHTA, as they were “now in a position to consider the previously illegal and therefore inaccessible market of rhino horn”.

A similar statement told potential foreign investors “to consider purchasing horn with a view to ‘banking’ it in the knowledge that, as a scarce commodity, its price has the potential to rise in the future (should the international trade ban be reversed).”

This would open up a second market, “one promising to be extremely lucrative, given the level of demand in Asia in particular,” it said.

Pelham Jones, who runs the association, said: “The whole process of permitting, etc, is hugely complicated and unbelievably slow.”

John Hume, the world’s biggest rhino farmer, had listed his entire stockpile in the RHTA desk. “That’s over six tons and by pure tonnage is probably 80% of SA ‘s private stockpile up for trade.”

Jones said 360kg of rhino horn had already been sold since the moratorium was lifted last April through private transactions.

“There are obviously those individuals who have concluded private treaties between willing buyers and sellers. However, the online trade platform is wanting to attract willing buyers on a much broader basis and this is taking longer than expected.

“There’s been a lot of litigation in this area and buyers are often not from South Africa and so English is not their home language. There’s a fair degree of suspicion that once the deal is concluded, will they get their permits and will their ownership rights be entrenched?

“So this is where we’re seeing the market remain quite nervous. But we didn’t anticipate a massive flood, it would be a trickle and that would progressively grow.”

There had been a 46% increase in poaching on private reserves.

“The current market of rhino is very depressed ... The fact that only a few association members have physically brought their horns in doesn’t worry me at all. We’re in a wait and see position ... to see if South Africa is going to prepare a trade proposal for the next Cites COP in Sri Lanka next year.”