Page 28 - ARUBA TODAY

A28 SCIENCE
Wednesday 15 March 2017

Despite poaching, South Africa plans for rhino horn trade

CHRISTOPHER TORCHIA with DNA data and other cause its horn would have
Associated Press information related to ex- been worth a fraction of
JOHANNESBURG (AP) — ported horns. Skeptics be- what it is.”
South Africa’s government lieve the system would be Hume described South Afri-
is moving ahead with plans open to corruption. ca’s draft legislation on the
to allow a domestic trade Some consumers in Asia domestic rhino horn trade
and limited export of rhino believe rhino horn in pow- as “a step in the right direc-
horns, alarming many in- der form can cure illnesses, tion.”
ternational conservationists although there is no evi- But Allison Thomson, a
who believe rhinos will be dence that the horn, made South African campaigner
more vulnerable to poach- of the same substance as against legalization, said
ers after a record slaughter human fingernails, has any putting rhino horns on the
in the past decade. medicinal value. market would increase de-
Draft regulations would al- Critics say legalization will mand and that South Af-
low a foreigner with permits spur poaching as illegally rica is sending “conflicting
to export “for personal pur- In this Wednesday, March 8, 2017 photo, three rhinos line up obtained horns are laun- messages” about how to
poses” a maximum of two at the Welgevonden Game Reserve in the Limpopo province, dered into the legal mar- deal with poaching, jeop-
rhino horns. Critics argue South Africa. Associated Press ket, similar to the exploita- ardizing its lucrative wildlife
that any exported horns tion of elephant ivory. Rhino tourism. “The risk we run at
would be hard to monitor growing demand for horns A 30-day period during breeders, however, believe the moment is that if we
and likely would end up on in parts of Asia, especially which the public was in- poaching would be under- open up trade and poach-
the commercial market, Vietnam. vited to express opinions cut by a regulated trade, ing escalates we will have
defying global agreements South Africa’s government about the draft legislation which likely would allow no rhinos in the wild. We will
to protect threatened rhino has lost court battles to pre- on rhino horn trade ended the sale of horn stockpiles only have rhinos on farms,
populations. serve the 2009 ban, which Friday, the Department of and the harvesting of horns being farmed like cows,”
Most of the world’s rhinos was challenged by rhino Environmental Affairs said. from living rhinos. Thomson said.
live in South Africa. An inter- breeders, and has leaned “The comments will be The poaching is not con- Poachers killed 1,054 rhinos
national ban on trade in rhi- toward trade, backing a evaluated, the draft regu- fined to South Africa. in South Africa last year, a
no horns has been in place failed proposal by neigh- latory provisions will be re- This month, a 5-year-old 10 percent drop from 2015,
since 1977, and South Af- boring Swaziland at a U.N. vised based on the com- white rhinoceros was shot according to the govern-
rica imposed a moratorium wildlife conference in Jo- ments received, and the three times in the head by ment. While authorities at-
on the domestic trade in hannesburg last year to le- process for approval of the poachers who broke into tributed the decrease to
2009, when rhino poaching galize the international sale final legislation will be set in the Thoiry Zoo near Paris increased security and
was accelerating to meet of rhino horn. motion,” the department and used a chain saw to other anti-poaching mea-
said in an email to The As- remove the rhino’s horn. sures, some conservation-
WE BRING OUR LIVE GIRL ON GIRL SHOW TO YOU sociated Press. “Banning the trade in ists speculate that there are
A foreigner who takes rhino horn has made the horn fewer rhinos to kill. Drought
horns out of the country more and more and more also killed some rhinos in
must do so through O.R. valuable. Had we never the past year.
Tambo International Air- banned it, the price of horn By some estimates, South
port in Johannesburg and would never have got to Africa has nearly 20,000
cannot carry them in hand where it is now,” said John rhinos, or 80 percent of Af-
luggage, according to the Hume, a rhino breeder in rica’s population. Asia has
draft provisions. They say South Africa. “And that several rhino species, in-
authorized freight agents Parisian rhino would have cluding two that are criti-
must provide authorities been safe in its zoo be- cally endangered.q