Green Options

Additional field rangers and the military are part of Kruger National Park’s plan to fight commercial poaching - which has led to the death of 94 rhinos in South Africa this year.

KNP Chief Executive Dr. David Mabunda declared war on poachers with the appointment of 57 field rangers and the return of the military to protect the park’s precious wildlife from the onslaught of unprecedented killings.

Poachers from China and Vietnam have found a loophole for obtaining rhino horn by participating in legal trophy hunts in South Africa - and then having the horns shipped to Asia for illegal sale.

Last week, members of PHASA (Professional Hunters’ Association of South Africa) were advised not to “book and conduct hunts with nationals from Vietnam or other Far Eastern countries” until the government had “removed this abuse of the SA legal system.”

The most recent example of this “system abuse” was the incident in May, when Dwesa Nature Reserve awarded the “right” to kill 6 rhino to the highest bidder - African Scent Safaris. It was then confirmed that Vietnamese clients of African Scent Safaris killed two rhino and had the horns exported to Vietnam.

This also brings into question whether or not SANParks’ recent auction of White Rhinos from Kruger NP could be contributing to the exploitation of legal trophy hunting by poachers from China and other Asian countries.

A post of a few months ago considered whether the Cape Town City Council would have to charge residents to manage the Peninsular Baboons - now they have approved funds and plan a workshop while residents have baboons droping into their bathroom.

City Supports Baboon Monitoring and Wants to Develop a Plan

In the first news story since the recent post on the Cape Peninsular baboons, the Cape Town City Council has set aside a quarter of a million dollars to continue the funding of the baboon monitoring programme on the Peninsula.
This was good news for many as there has been uncertainty, as to whether the city council would continue to fund a ten-year-old baboon monitor programme. The programme has minders keeping watch over baboon troops and where possible keeping them away from the urban areas. Sensibly the city has also decided that the quarter of a million dollars is only an interim solution and will also be working with South African National Parks (Sanparks) and Cape Nature Conservation to address the problem. The city will host a baboon expert workshop at the Civic Centre on July 2, with the aim of finding “the most effective strategy for baboon management in the Cape Peninsula” and determining how best to implement it.

South African National Parks (SANParks) held a UN sanctioned auction on November 6th,  where they sold off 47 metric tons of stockpiled ivory, earning the government conservation agency US$6.7 million.

The auction in South Africa marked the end of a “once-off” sale of ivory approved by the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) involving South Africa, Namibia, Botswana, and Zimbabwe.   Since October, the four countries have participated in a series of legal ivory auctions and have sold over 100 metric tons of ivory, mainly to Chinese and Japanese buyers.  All together, the UN sanctioned auctions have earned about US $15 million.