Press Release
RHINOS UNDER SIEGE IN SOUTH AFRICA: PUBLIC CALLS FOR IMMEDIATE MORATORIUM ON HUNTING AND TRADE
14 July 2009
"Appalled", was the response from Animal Rights Africa (ARA) to the news that SANParks is selling hundreds of Rhino and other animals from the Kruger National Park and allowing hunters to kill Kruger animals by actively promoting and allowing hunting along Kruger's ever-increasing porous borders.
Said ARA spokesperson Michele Pickover,
"This is not only outrageous, short-sighted and cruel, but an illegitimate an unscientific action that speaks of failed management policies. It epitomizes the blatant disregard SANParks has for its core mandate: protecting biodiversity, and the national and international heritage status of wildlife that has been entrusted into SANParks care on behalf of all South Africans."
"ARA is extremely concerned about this government's uncritical support for the ethically and scientifically flawed process of 'sustainable use'. SANParks is under the arrogant misconception that this problematic and ill-defined phrase gives them the right to treat animals like commodities and sell off, exploit and destroy our heritage without end and with no consultation transparency or accountability. The analogy is a national museum stocked with unique treasures and the Curator selling these off piece by piece until the museum is empty. 'Sustainable use' is now just a euphemism for unsustainable killing, suffering and massive exploitation", said Pickover.
Conservation is not just about protection of so-called "atural resources" – it is just as much, if not more, about protection of the individual animals, and financing thereof is the responsibility of national government. This is why the government collects taxes. It is unethical to raise money under the guise of conservation by sacrificing wild animals in South Africa to the highest bidders for whatever purpose they have in store, including the gratuitous killing of wild animals by trophy hunters from the North.
ARA also expressed outrage at the news that a large number of the KNP rhino have been sold to a single buyer and that a number of these rhino had already died as the result of being captured and translocated.
ARA is currently working on an explosive investigate report, Under Siege: Rhinos in South Africa. South Africa is currently entrusted with over 90% of the world's population of rhinos. At the same time it has become abundantly clear that not only are rhinos in South Africa facing one of their worst threats ever as a species, but they are literally under siege and this means untold suffering and death for the individuals involved. The conservation and growth of rhino numbers in the 1980s occurred precisely because there was no hunting. There is now a completely different situation in play, where the hunting, poaching and trade of rhinos, both illegal and legal, are once again pushing the species to the brink of extinction. Rhinos are in this position is directly because of South Africa's failed conservation policies of overt consumptive use and trade and its lack of appropriate and adequate enforcement measures to protect rhinos.
In response to SANParks obvious shortcomings in regard to protecting the rhino population, as well as the lack of ethically sound rhino conservation management throughout South Africa, particularly as regards the hunting of rhino, the laundering of rhino horn through the trophy hunting industry and the sale of rhino for export to zoos, parks and private facilities abroad, ARA is asking the Minister of Water and Environment Affairs to intervene by doing the following as a matter of urgency:
- Impose an immediate moratorium on all capture, sale, translocation and hunting of rhino in South Africa;
- Launch an investigation into the SANParks management process that resulted in the decision to remove this number of rhino from KNP and how SANParks decided on the buyers of these rhino, and make the findings of this investigation public;
- Convene a public consultative workshop to deal with rhino management in South Africa as the start of the legally required process of consulting with all interested and affected parties;
- Announce that the abovementioned public workshop will be step one of a public consultation and participation process that will result in National Norms and Standards for the Management of Rhino (Black and White) in South Africa (similar to that for elephant);
- Undertake a consultation process and a Parliamentary Review of the management policies in relation to the Kruger National Park and other reserves.
Contact :
Steve Smit (Durban) 082 659 4711
Michele Pickover (Johannesburg) 082 253 2124
E.mail :
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