FRIDAY, 3.30PM
SOUTH Africa on Friday motivated for a strictly controlled legal trade in rhino horn and other products, arguing that this will reduce illegal activities.
Addressing the 10th conference in Harare, Zimbabwe, of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species, Natal Parks Board CEO Dr George Hughes argued that the availability of a legal source of rhino horn will provide a strong disincentive to purchase horn on black markets.
Hughes claimed the trade ban had been ineffective in providing protection for rhinos, adding that the only rhino populations to have increased were those which had been effectively protected and managed.
The fact that use of rhino horn is deeply entrenched in Chinese traditional medicine, Hughes said, will ensure that demand will persist.
South Africa, with around 7 500 southern white rhinos, is supporting a proposal by Botswana, Namibia and Zimbabwe that trade in ivory and rhino horn be unbanned. Hughes added that the sustained increase in southern white numbers from 20 to more than 7 500 over the last 100 years, and the stabilisation of black rhino numbers in Africa since 1992, could be attributed to the contribution of well protected and managed populations in a number of range states, especially South Africa.
However, He said that South Africa does not wish to trade in rhino horn immediately, but will request a zero quota once a strictly controlled marketing system had been developed and accepted by Cites.
He noted that at current growths rates, the South African white rhino population will double to 14 000 within a decade. Economic incentives are required, he said, to ensure that sufficient private land is managed for wildlife and is made available to rhinos.