An anti-rhino poaching poster drawn by a schoolchild.
Three months ago Kingsley Holgate, dubbed the most travelled man in Africa, started a 90-day trip along the Lubombo mountain range called "Izintaba Zobombo Expedition". The plan was to explore and map this range, which runs from KwaZulu-Natal to Zimbabwe.
Its southern parts are tall and craggy, making travelling hard. But further north they even out into rolling hills. In the Kruger National Park they dominate the horizon, marking a long line that forms the border between South Africa and Mozambique. A rhino that crosses this line into the eastern side of what is now the Great Limpopo Transfrontier Park has 48-hours to live.
It is this slaughter that convinced Holgate to change the purpose of his trip. "We realised we have to do something for the rhino. We spoke to people and they agreed that nothing we are doing now is stopping the killing."
His idea was to get children to talk to each other. So in every community they stopped in, schoolchildren were given paper and crayons and asked to express what they felt about poaching.
“How are we going to save the rhino if we do not involve local communities," wonders Holgate.
Holgate's hope is to find a way to send the pictures to schools in Asia – the main consumer countries. "We need to get people talking." If children can see what children in South Africa think about the killing of rhino, they might convince their parents to stop using rhino horn, he said.
'No political will'
On the Mozambique side of the park there are many communities still living inside the boundaries. Massingir, the first large town inside the border, is a base for many of the poaching expeditions. “There are poachers building mansions and nobody is doing anything because there is no political will," said Holgate.
The expedition found mothers lamenting the deaths of their sons, killed while poaching, and children drawing the same pictures as their South African counterparts.
Relief Mgiba, a grade seven student, wrote: “Rhinos are being butchered all around us and we are all upset to see this happen, but since we aren’t game rangers, millionaires or powerful politicians, can we really make a contribution to save a rhino for our children’s children?”
The pictures are violent, with many depicting poachers firing at rhino and battling game rangers.
Over 450 rhino have been killed this year. Last year 668 were killed, with the number roughly doubling every year for the last four years when poaching took off. At this rate nearly a thousand will be killed this year.
This is despite an intensification of efforts to combat poaching. The treasury allocated R75-million; the army has been deployed; drones are about to hit the skies; and dogs are on the ground sniffing the trail of poachers. Poachers are also being given stiff jail sentences – whereas in Mozambique they get a small fine that is easily paid with the millions made from poaching. A horn goes for around R500 000 a kilogramme.
'Extinction of the rhino'
The department of environmental affairs is desperate for any solution. Edna Molewa, its minister, said in a press conference last week, "2026 is the year where we see the beginning of the extinction of the rhino. This is around the corner and that is scary."
Her department is proposing a once-off sale of the 16-tonnes of rhino horn that has been legally stockpiled by the government. "We need to destroy the black market," she said. This proposal will be taken to the next meeting of Cites, the body tasked with controlling the trade in endangered species, to be held in South African in 2016.
But even this is only one of many options environmental affairs is looking at. The fence between Mozambique and South Africa, taken down to create a transfrontier park, could also be rebuilt. "We are looking for anyone that has a proposal," said Molewa.