Thursday, June 10, 2010

Rhino poaching: lets go legal


In the latest issue of Africa Geographic, John Hanks tackles the problem of the ever increasing statistics in rhino poaching, despite the trade ban on horn. According to him, this trade ban is clearly not working, for example since 2006, most of the poaching has been centred around Zimabwe and South Africa and killing rhinos has reached a level higher than any other in recent history and not even the Kruger National Park has been safe. If the trade ban has apparently been so ineffective, why not look at a totally different approach and open up a strictly controlled legal trade in rhino trade. According to the Michael Eustace, an economist from SA, SA alone could provide 1 500 kilograms of horn each year from rhinos that have died from natural causes-not a single animal would have to be killed. This article is available in the HOORC Library

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