RHINO SCANDAL
Hundreds of white rhinos are landing up in the hands of Chinese and Vietnamese entrepreneurs as a lack of crucial paperwork stymies SA conservation controls
HUNDREDS of SA rhinos are shipped to horror Chinese zoos and breeding programmes that are feeding Far East pharmaceutical companies selling horn as a traditional cure all.
The live rhino, a species now threatened with extinction, are legally exported because of failures in conservation controls.
The export is happening despite government tightening export controls under the Convention on the International Trade in Endangered Species (Cites)
The Sunday Tribune can reveal that scores, if not hundreds, of SA white rhino have ended up in the hands of Chinese and Vietnamese entrepreneurs linked to the traditional pharmaceuticals industry – in which rhino horn is used both as a tonic and as a traditional cure-all.
Some destinations SA rhino have ended up could be worse than Chinese breeding farms and Vietnamese zoos where the horn is shaved for medical use.
In 2010 two Cites-listed rhinos were exported to the company Thai Skin and Hide – seemingly in complete defiance of international protocols under Cites. These regulations seek to ensure that rhino may only be exported to zoological institutions with adequate facilities, a strong conservation agenda – and no connection to the trade in animal body parts and derivatives.
The revelations come as a powerful lobby is seeking to convince the international community to decriminalise the rhino horn trade on the argument that a legal trade would reduce the incentives for poaching.
In 2012 alone, 245 rhinos have been killed in SA for their horns.
Apparent failures to comply with Cites requirements and apply due diligence procedures, added to the seeming inability of the authorities to act decisively against rhino poachers could weaken SA’s negotiating position at Cites’ COP 2013 conference in Bangkok next year, where the SA delegation is expected to plead for a relaxation of controls.
Statistics provided by Water and Environmental Affairs Minister Edna Molewa in reply to parliamentary questions in April and May claim 101 live white rhinos have been exported from SA since 2007, and a total of 104 since 2006. But the real number could be far higher. According to Cites’ data 193 rhinos were exported from SA between 2007 and 2010.
Molewa’s answers also proved economical with information. In response to Parliamentary question 1394, in May, no details were given on importers and exporters, nor on whether the department’s threatened or protected species permits had been issued. In only 11 of 29 shipments had Cites protocols been observed, Molewa said. In the rest, no information was given.
An earlier parliamentary response in April – where information passed on to the legislature relied largely on export records at OR Tambo Airport – was more forthcoming. Here it emerged a small group of dealers accounted for the lion’s share of rhino exports – at least those for which there was information. These included the company Decai International, which exported 28 rhinos in the period to far eastern zoos. Decai’s directors are Chinese themselves, with only two in possession of SA IDs.
Interviewed this week, registered co-owner of Decai, Hong Yu Chen, confirmed the company was an import/export trader dealing in live animals, animal skins and SA wine, and also catered to the safari travel and hunting industry.
She said they also offered safari travel and hunting to their customers, but had not been able to fulfil requests from China for live rhino lately as the department had stopped permits.
Alongside Decai, wildlife agency Bester Birds is listed as exporting 24 live rhino, and dealer Jimmy Magill six.
Both Magill and Mike Bester denied any wrongdoing, and insisted their exports had been vetted and properly permitted.
Especially sketchy in the parliamentary replies was the information made available from the North West Province – where Minister Molewa served as premier until 2009.
Although department officials are required by law to retain copies of all permits issued for the export of live rhinos, no details were supplied to Parliament regarding exporting agencies. In every case it was only because the information was given in the O R Tambo paperwork that the destination of the rhinos was revealed.
One such reference that slipped through is to the Longhui Breeding Company in Tailing Village in the province of Tianya. Longhui is closely linked with the Chinese traditional medicine lobby and campaigns to relegalise the pharmaceutical use of rhino horn – after China banned it on becoming a signatory to Cites in 1993.
As revealed in a Time magazine report last year Longhui’s parent company is the Chinese weapons manufacturer the Hawk Group, headed by Zhang Juyan, a member of China’s National People’s Congress. The Hawk Group also owns a safari park called Africa View in Hainan province.
Founded in 2006, Africa View was advertised as housing around 50 different species including lions and antelope as well as rhino. However two years later the only animals in evidence were some 60 rhinos cooped up in concrete pens.
Longhui’s website meanwhile spelt it out: “To provide our pharmaceutical raw materials,” it says, “the company has built an endangered animals breeding station in Sanya, Hainan province.” Its business plan shows Longhui aims to produce rhino horn pharmaceuticals to the value of $60 million (R501m).
Soon after western media and conservation officials became aware of the programme, Longhui removed its business outline from the web.
Nor is Longhui’s the only Chinese programme linked to the traditional medicines industry. Conservation activists have also raised the red flag over a consignment of 12 rhinos delivered from O R Tambo Airport to Yunnan Wild Animal Park in Kunming at the end of June 2010 – at a time when SA was suspending all exports while definitions were clarified around what constituted an “appropriate and acceptable destination” for rhinos.
According to Cites, an increasingly unregulated wildlife trade has become a major factor in the decline of species of animals and plants, and member countries are supposed to control a list of species that are endangered or at risk of becoming endangered due to inadequate control of trade.
While black rhino as critically endangered animals may not be exported at all, white rhinos are listed as a threatened species under Cites protocols.
According to department spokesman Albi Modise: “Live rhino can only be exported to zoos which are members of the World Association of Zoos and Aquariums.
“In addition, the export is authorised only if the scientific authority of the country of import confirms in writing that the recipient of the rhino is appropriate and acceptable.”
In addition, he said the authority had to confirm the importing country had legislation to ensure the animals would not be used for purposes other than
on the permit.”