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

situation at the source: south africa
Rhino hoRn StockS in South AfRicA
TRAFFIC Rhino Horn Stockpile Register Database (and inset) a government rhino horn stockpile.
SIMON MILLEDGE/TRAFFIC
Government stocks
Provincial government conservation agencies that manage the bulk of South Africa’s rhinos through an
extensive network of protected areas are constantly acquiring rhino horns through retrievals from
an imals that died naturally or were poached in the wild. Rhino horns are also added to stockpiles via
occasional management-related activities such as dehorning or the loss of horns during translocation,
or through law enforcement actions that result in seizures. SANParks, which conserves the country’s
largest White and Black Rhino populations, also has responsibility for managing those rhino horns that
fall into its possession. Similarly, all provincial conservation authorities have responsibility for managing
rhino horns.
Each of these authorities maintains institutional facilities for storing rhino horns and other wildlife
products such as elephant ivory in their possession. In some cases, the location of the strong room is
kept a secret. In recent years, a range of security features have been installed to ensure better protection.
Strict protocols determine access, management and record keeping for the country’s rhino stocks,
which are officially regarded as government assets. Regulations on horn stockpile procedures were
reviewed in 2009 and 2011 in the light of concerns about irregularities in record-keeping. The most
recent amendments to government Norms and Standards in April 2012 require provincial government
agencies to keep all horn stockpile records on the database developed by TRAFFIC (see Milledge, 2004),
which will be managed by DEA.
Through a CITES process pursuant to Decision 14.88, all Parties were required to provide data on rhino
horn stocks in their possession to the CITES Secretariat in 2009. Whilst South Africa complied and made
a submission, the report did not include any information from Western Cape province, nor did Eastern
Cape, Free State, Mpumalanga and Northern Cape provinces report on privately-held rhino horn stocks.
The largest government authority collections by 2009 were held by EKZNW and SANParks. The lack of
report from the Western Cape is thought to reflect an administrative error rather than a serious problem,
as very few rhinos are actually found in that province (R. Emslie, pers. comm., 2011). As of the beginning
of 2012, DEA are co-ordinating an updated survey of provincial rhino horn stockpiles and taking samples
for DNA analysis of all horns to be added to the RhoDIS database (S. Meintjes, pers. comm., 2012). In
general, it would appear that rhino horn stock management systems are reasonably well developed and
implemented by government conservation authorities throughout the country.
Private sector stocks
Rhino horns, including antiques, family heirlooms, legal purchases or individual hunting trophies, are
also subject to private ownership through a variety of circumstances which effectively span Africa’s colonial
heritage to modern times. Further, there is a continuous accumulation of rhino horns deriving from
the more than an estimated 5000 privately-owned rhinos on some 450 properties around the country.
Natural, accidental or capture mortalities, management-related activities such as dehorning, knock-offs
from fighting and boma confinement, and the occasional recovery of horns from animals killed by
poachers has ensured a periodic and sustained accumulation of rhino horns in the private sector.
In all of South Africa’s nine provinces, legal controls stipulate that individual horns in the private sector
require possession permits. Until 2009, the sale of rhino horns within South Africa to South African
nationals was allowed, but landowners on private property could not sell rhino horn to foreign buyers.
This enabled certain individuals to create mini-stockpiles, which potentially could then be illeg ally used.
Legal stockpile purchases could also be exported as personal effects, to be sold later on into trade. In fact,
there were many apparent gaps in the registration and reporting of privately-held rhino horn stocks in
South Africa. Nobody knew the precise scale of horns held as personal effects in South Africa, but they
could conceivably number in the hundreds (if not thousands) of specimens. In recognition of these problems,
the government imposed a temporary national moratorium on the sale of individual rhinoceros
horns and any derivatives or products in Government Notice 148 in Government Gazette 31899 of 13
February 2009 to ensure that no legally-obtained horns could end up in the illegal trade (Anon., 2010a).
The stock declaration process under CITES Decision 14.88 described above served to amplify previous deficiencies
in the government’s management of private sector rhino horn stocks. Within Africa as a whole,
only about 9% of the reported 23.5 tonnes of rhino horn stocks are currently held by the private sector and,
of these, nearly three-quarters are in the possession of private individuals in South Africa (Milliken et al.,
2009b). The fact that five provinces experienced difficulty in providing data through the CITES process was
indicative of problems in tracking non-government rhino horn ownership in the country.
The most recent reports on rhino horn stockpiles in South Africa as of the last quarter of 2010 (Table 5;
Knight, 2011) show an increase of 5.7% in State stockpiles and 26.4% in stockpiles of private horn since
CITES reporting in 2009, in part due to better reporting at a provincial level. From 2004, horn stockpiles
have been growing by 5%, roughly in line with rhino population growth rates. The marked increase in
official records of private rhino horn stockpiles between 2009 and 2010 could be seen as a positive trend,
indicating increased compliance within this sector.
Type of horn Quantity Mass (kg) Percentage (%)
Legal State 6423 12 961 85.5
Illegal State 163 386 2.5
Private 920 1805 11.9
Total 7506 15 152
Table 5 Rhino horn stockpiles in South Africa as of 31 December 2010 (Knight, 2011)
However, it is useful to compare the actual reported data with estimated rates of rhino horn accumulation
in the private sector as an indication of what is potentially “missing” in the data and possibly has
already gone into illegal trade. It has been estimated that, overall, the mortality rate of the segment of
the country’s rhino population that is privately owned is 2.15% annually (Hall-Martin et al., 2009). If
that is the case, between 2005 and 2008 a total of 322 White Rhino deaths would have occurred, yielding
approximately 1650 kg of rhino horn (Hall-Martin et al., 2009). In addition, another 125 kg of horn
per annum was harvested through dehorning or other factors, increasing the total over this four-year
period to “at least 2150” kg (Hall-Martin et al., 2009). When other years that predate this time period are
considered, Hall-Martin et al. (2009) suggested that at least 3361 kg of rhino horn should be in the
hands of private owners in South Africa. Using the same methodology from Hall-Martin et al. (2009) for
natural mortalities from 2009 and 2010 produces an updated total private horn stockpile of 3921 kg.
Another look at this issue using a different methodology estimated that some 4750 kg of rhino horn
should be in the private sector (Milliken et al, 2009b). It can be seen that South Africa’s official declaration
of privately-owned rhino horn stocks to CITES in mid-2009 falls far short of these figures by
62 the south africa – viet nam rhino horn trade nexus TRAFFIC 63