The South Africa – Viet Nam Rhino Horn Trade Nexus (PDF ... - WWF

situation at the end-use market: viet nam
Vietnamese woman with a “fake” Asian rhino horn.
… that a very large percentage of the “rhino horn” on the market in Vietnam comes from water buffalo
(and we were told that some of the Chinese horns were even better fakes). [Overall] possibly 90% of the
rhino horn products offered to consumers are fake (Ammann, 2011).
A recent AFP reporter claimed:
karl ammann
There is also a huge trade in counterfeit horn as local demand far outstrips supply and Thao [a specialist
in Vietnamese traditional medicine] said well-known traders have months-long waiting lists for
the genuine substance (Barton, 2012).
Because it is appreciated that authentic rhino horns are very expensive, traders offering rhino horns for
cheaper prices are often suspected of trying to sell imitation horns. The growing internet trade in rhino
horn clearly presents challenges in terms of product authenticity for potential buyers. Interestingly, following
the May 2010 announcement by the WWF office in Viet Nam that the country’s last extant
rhino had been shot for its horn and the species was now presumed extinct in Viet Nam, TRAFFIC
monitors observed that certain internet rhino horn traders suddenly, but temporarily, became very
quiet, only to return back on the internet a few weeks later with reassuring claims that their horns were
100% authentic.
TrAdE rouTEs for rhINo horNs INTo VIET NAM
Annam, the ancient name for Viet Nam, was historically ranked in the highest echelons of the hierarchical
system of tributary nations with Imperial China. Champa, which until the 1400s constituted a
separate southern kingdom within the present day territory of Viet Nam, was also a tributary state. As
the principal means of diplomatic and commercial relations, Annam and Champa regularly sent tribute
to the Chinese Emperors for hundreds of years, typically on a triennial basis. Tribute implied a gift or
offering, rather than a tax, from a lower rank to a higher rank. In this regard, the horns of indigenous
rhino species, along with elephant ivory and hawksbill tortoiseshell, were frequent and prized wildlife
commodities of value from the so-called vassal states of Viet Nam (Needham, 1956).
So treasured was rhino horn that some of China’s tributary states in Indochina were sometimes known
in Imperial shorthand as the “lands of the rhino” (Beech and Perry, 2011).
Quaint historical precedents aside, Viet Nam’s contemporary rhino horn trade is essentially a modern
day phenomenon. For decades, Viet Nam has not been a rhino horn source of any consequence, but in
recent years its status in the trade has transformed dramatically into arguably the world’s premiere destination
country and end-use market. In fact, even throughout most of the 20th century, rhino horns
were not commonly marketed to the general public. Not until the very end of the 1990s, when the
country began experiencing consistently high economic growth rates, did rhino horn begin to appear
with some frequency in local markets. For example, in March 1990, an early study of Viet Nam’s wildlife
trade reported a host of animal products openly sold in Hanoi’s medicine markets, including tiger
bone, pangolin scales, primate skeletons and dried gecko, but rhino horns were remarkably absent:
One significant wildlife product expected to occur but missing from these pharmacies was rhino horn.
On several occasions, the author returned to the many small shops in the congested Lan Ong Street area
where shopkeepers had promised to supply rhino horn. On each occasion, they offered fake horn at a
fraction of the price that genuine horn would have [been] worth … It seems likely that because of the
poor economy in Hanoi and elsewhere in Viet Nam, any trader who actually possessed rhino horn would
either arrange to have it exported or would sell it to a foreigner. This is happening in neighbouring Laos
where almost all rhino horn is bought by visiting Thais (Martin, 1992).
In January 1991, in Ho Chi Minh City, the same researcher found rhino horn equally difficult to locate.
On only one occasion was a real horn observed, a Black Rhino horn weighing 2.35 kg that had just
been sold to an overseas Chinese businessman (Martin, 1992). (In the early 1990s, rhino horn trade in
Taiwan was considered to be one of the largest in the world; see Nowell et al., 1992). The dealer selling
this particular horn reported that:
He had only seen three [genuine] rhino horns in Ho Chi Minh City over the past few years, and he
believes that only the Chinese traders in Cholon and he himself can distinguish them from fakes
(Martin, 1992).
130 the south africa – viet nam rhino horn trade nexus TRAFFIC 131
South Africa
Viet Nam