New regulations to control trade in rhino horn

June 10, 2008;

MERCURY (Durban) 10 Jun 2008 Page 4

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New clampdown will control trade in rhino horns

EMERGENCY regulations to control illegal trade in rhino horns are due to be published later this week, to plug gaping holes in South Africa`s wildlife trade and export laws.
The measures will include a national moratorium on the sale or export of rhino horns, unless the owners can prove that the horns were acquired legally.
A senior official said the interim measures were expected to be published in the Government Gazette this Friday, but stressed that it was not expected to affect authorised professional trophy hunts.
Last week, Environmental Affairs and Tourism minister Marthinus van Schalkwyk announced that there had been a "dramatic increase" in the illegal trade of rhino horn and the hunting of white rhinos, which was directly linked to organised crime.
As a first step to control the problem, he had decided to impose a national freeze on the trade in individual rhino horns to enable SA National Parks and provinces to apply consistent permit and control procedures.
Van Schalkwyk said at least 27 white rhino had been poached in the Kruger National Park over the past two years and there had also been an increase in rhino horn poaching in other parts of the country. During the course of investigating rhino horn deals, it has been established that prospective hunters applied for permits to hunt rhino in various provinces, and that permits were subsequently issued. But on closer examination it was discovered that some of these hunts never took place and the relevant authorities were never informed.
This allowed the permit holder to legally export illegally obtained individual horns as hunting trophies.? It also emerged that some provincial nature conservation departments were not supervising the hunts they authorised and that some provinces still issued "exemption permits", which did not require hunters to notify the provincial authorities about details of a rhino hunt.
Exporting. A senior official in Van Schalkwyk`s department said yesterday that the moratorium on exporting individual rhino horns could last for at least one year. The officials said one of the problems was that until the recent enactment of the National Environmental Management Biodiversity Act, the control of rhino hunting was governed by different nature conservation regulations in the provinces.
This meant hunters could apply for permits in different provinces simultaneously, leading to "multiple hunts", ostensibly for a single animal.
The new measures, however, would only permit hunting one white rhino per hunter per year. All hunts would also have to be personally supervised by a provincial nature conservation official and all horns marked with a microchip.
No permits would be issued for horn exports unless they were shipped as part a certified rhino trophy by taxidermists.
The new restrictions would also apply to people who emigrated and no exports would be allowed unless the owners could provide satisfactory proof that they were not hunted illegally. Other sources have also expressed concern that several nationals from the Far East, including Koreans, have been visiting South Africa posing as trophy hunters, yet their sole interest appeared to be acquiring rhino horns for traditional medicine.
Ezemvelo KZN Wildlife spokesman Jeff Gaisford said the provincial nature conservation agency was seeking clarity about the implications of the new measures.
Gaisford said Ezemvelo was concerned that a moratorium could drive down the price of live rhinos, which were sold legally every year during the KZN Wildlife game auction.
During the most recent auction, the average price of white rhinos exceeded R250 000 each, with one trophy-quality rhino bull selling for R470 000.
However, a spokesman for the national Environmental Affairs Department said, "The new interim measures and moratorium do not affect the trophy hunting trade, nor is it a moratorium on hunting".
"The intention is to protect legal hunters and make sure that every legal hunt is conducted properly and that any horn exports are legal".