Kruger rhino carcasses keep piling up! Is the rhino “up the creek without a paddle”? Kruger rhino carcasses keep piling up! Is the rhino “up the creek without a paddle”? Simon Bloch (For Independent News Group) 1st February 2013 With the world’s rhino population now officially on the road to extinction, diplomatic dithering by South African conservation authorities and their Mozambican partners in the global wildlife umbrella Cites grouping have seen them miss one of two critical deadlines for strategic interventions in the crisis. The January 31st deadline for the signing of a memorandum of understanding between South African conservation authorities and their counterparts in neighboring Mozambique came and went on Friday, without pen being put to paper. The memorandum would have established urgent protocols for joint action and combined strategies against marauding gangs of poachers operating out of Mozambique who accounted for the death in January of more than 60 rhinos in South Africa’s Kruger National Park. After another delay in May last year, Environmental Affairs Minister Edna Molewa said she did not believe there was any sinister motive. It was partly the result of a new minister being appointed there. Against the backdrop of mounting evidence of involvement on the part of Mozambique’s security forces – military as well as police and conservation authorities – in the poaching crisis, Africa’s defence and security news portal Defence Web reported Friday the country reportedly begged off, indicating it was “not yet in a position to sign”. Without a signed MOU and no clear road-map on the way forward, future collaboration between South Africa and Mozambique remains speculative. Independent weekly “Savana” last week reported five Mozambican policemen were detained in the southern province of Gaza for their role in an armed robbery and in trafficking in rhinoceros horns. The police officers are believed to have received information that rhino horns were stored in the house of a known poacher in the town of Massingir. The paper’s sources confirmed the men raided the house, without any warrant, and removed a rhino horn. The head of operations in the Gaza provincial police command, Candido Mazive, the paper claims, then arranged the sale of the horn. The Massingir district police commander allegedly split the proceeds with the head of the Massingir brigade of the Criminal Investigation Police (PIC) received. Others involved were a PIC agent, a member of the traffic police and the driver of the car used in the crime. Contacted by “Savana”, Gaza police spokesperson Jaime Langa said he knew nothing about the incident, while the Gaza provincial commander, Joao Manguele, refused to make any comment. But in a television interview, the director of order in the provincial command, confirmed the involvement of five senior policemen, and did not rule out the possibility that others too might be involved. On Thursday Department of Environmental Affairs spokesman Albi Modise strangely made no mention of the MOU deadline and missed opportunity, which has been dragging on for nearly two years. He instead released a media statement informing the public that the department was still currently reviewing the National Strategy for the Safety and Security of Rhinoceros Populations in South Africa. “The review of the strategy will assist in addressing emerging issues and potential gaps to further strengthen interventions being implemented to curb the poaching of rhino” he said. This comes less than two weeks after the Department of Environmental Affairs confirmed that 1004 rhinos were slaughtered across the country in 2013, with 606 recorded in the flagship reserve. Thus far the crisis appears to have deepened in 2014, with at least 63 rhinos being killed for their horn in the Kruger conservancy in January alone, and 24 others reported killed in other provinces. That equates to more than the total of 83 killed in the twelve months of 2008 alone, the year the current wave of horror poaching hit South Africa like a tsunasmi. Since then, rhino poaching has escalated at an alarming rate. At the current rate of attrition, Kruger Park’s own scientists have warned, the world’s biggest population of rhinos could be wiped out by the middle of the next decade. It was also in 2013 that the balance tipped into a negative growth curve - with a greater number of rhinos, as statistically analysed, being poached than were born. Trending statistics indicate that rhinos in the wild - as opposed to those bred in captive environments - could be extinct by 2025. At present – as a result of a rhino conservation launched by conservationist Dr Ian Player at Imfolozi, Zululand more than 50 years ago - South Africa is home to approximately 93 percent of the world’s rhino population. Of these, the flagship Kruger National Park accounts for roughly 73 percent of white rhinos living in the wild. Conservationists believe without serious global interventions against organized crime, corruption and wildlife-trafficking, the species could soon be wiped out for ever. At last year’s COP 16 Cites (The Convention on the International Trade In Endangered Species) meeting held in Bangkok in March, agreement was reached to set deadlines for Vietnam and Mozambique to clean up their act in terms of their management of the illegal rhino horn trade. Another CITES ultimatum and deadline was given to three countries’ conservation authorities late last year – after a CITES convened an urgent rhino task-force meeting with Interpol authorities and rhino range state officials in Nairobi Kenya. CITES stressed that the Czech Republic, South Africa and Viet Nam should take immediate action to increase their bilateral and trilateral cooperation to ensure that exports of rhinoceros horns from South Africa to the Czech Republic are legal, and prevent the illegal re-export of horns from the Czech Republic to Vietnam. At the briefing, it was stated all Parties should: a) Implement programmes to build the capacity of national agencies responsible for wildlife law enforcement to target criminal groups involved in rhinoceros poaching and illegal rhinoceros horn trade through risk profiling, intelligence-driven investigations and other investigation techniques, as appropriate; b) Increase their use of existing forensic technology and seek resources for the collection and submission of samples from all seized rhinoceros horns to designated accredited forensic laboratories; c) Implement programmes to build the capacity of national agencies responsible for wildlife law enforcement to conduct anti-money laundering investigations and to identify suspicious transactions, to ensure that criminals do not benefit from the proceeds of their crimes, to uncover the criminals who are organizing the poaching and illegal trade, and to bring them before the courts;criminals do not benefit from the proceeds of their crimes, to uncover the criminals who are organizing the poaching and illegal trade, and to bring them before the courts; d) Implement measures that will facilitate contact between national agencies responsible for wildlife law enforcement and their designated national competent authority for the United Nations Convention against Transnational Organized Crime (UNTOC), for guidance on the tools and services provided by UNTOC that could be deployed to combat illegal rhinoceros horn trade. Parties and the Secretariat were requested to report on progress in the implementation of the strategies and proposed actions at the 65th and 66th meetings of the CITES Standing Committee (scheduled for July 2014 and September 2015, respectively). Vietnam and Mozambique face sanctions that would prevent them from trading in any of the 35,000 species controlled by Cites if they do not take concrete steps to improve the ways in which they monitor and prosecute the illegal rhino horn trade. While Mozambique and Vietnam countries are both seen as conduits, Vietnam has been fingered by wildlife trade tracking organisation Traffic as the world’s main destination for illegally obtained rhino horn. Since South Africa tightened hunting regulations, the number of pseudo Asian rhino hunters had decreased. However investigators say the focus has shifted to Europe where Vietnamese syndicates have recruited European hunters to fill the vacuum and obtain horn trophies fraudulently. Last year Czech Republic Environmental Inspectorate officials bust a massive trans-national organized crime smuggling operation they described as having out “tentacles like an octopus”. According to investigators, “the networks and cells were spread out across the diaspora from the underground horn trading rooms in Vietnam to the game- hunting farms and wildlife auctions in South Africas bushveld’’. The on-going operation, which includes Europol and the Czech Customs Authority, led to multiple arrests and the recovery of a large quantitiy of rhino horns imported by pseudo-hunters that had been recruited by a Vietnamese syndicate. Additionally, two rhino horns which were seized in December, have been traced to a pseudo-rhino hunter who was recently permitted by South African authorities to export the horns to his address in the Czech Republic as a personal trophy. The horns were found concealed in a shipment at Prague’s Vaclav Havel Airport that was being exported to Vietnam. ENDS
Posted on: Sat, 01 Feb 2014 12:29:41 +0000
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