South Africa’s New Rhino Management Plan Includes Concerning Efforts to Ramp Up Horn Trade

Yesterday, South Africa’s Minister of Forestry, Fisheries and the Environment, Willie Aucamp, announced the publication of a new Biodiversity Management Plan for Black Rhinoceroses and White Rhinoceroses (BMP). 

EIA is deeply disappointed to see that the final version of the BMP retains dangerous actions to bring about the domestic and international commercial trade in rhino horn. EIA submitted extensive comments to the Department of Forestry, Fisheries and Environment (DFFE) on the draft BMP when it was initially published for public input back in June 2024, warning about the damaging impacts on demand, poaching, and illegal trade that creating commercial domestic and international rhino horn markets would have on rhino populations globally. 

“South Africa’s new rhino Biodiversity Management Plan will guide the country’s rhino conservation efforts for the next decade, and while there are many positive aspects to the Plan, they are severely undermined by the inclusion of initiatives to ramp up commercial rhino horn trade in South Africa and, eventually, to pursue international trade,” said Taylor Tench, EIA US Senior Wildlife Policy Analyst. 

The BMP calls for the development and implementation of a strategy for domestic trade in rhino parts and derivatives by December 2027, followed by the development of a proposal for international commercial trade in rhino horn by 2030. This includes exploring the use of rhino derivatives to produce “crafts” and medicinal products. In an apparent effort to square the circle of intentionally increasing demand for rhino horn without unleashing the floodgates of illegal trade, the BMP also calls for the creation of a demand management strategy that “has mechanisms to overcome potential tensions between illegal demand reduction & legal trade promotion” with an ambitious deadline of June 2026. No details are provided to suggest what such mechanisms may entail. 

“The DFFE had nearly two years to amend the draft rhino BMP to address the concerns raised by EIA and others, including South African stakeholders, about commercial trade provisions included in the Plan. It seems these concerns were completely ignored. It is all the more frustrating considering that the BMP acknowledges the major threat to the survival of wild rhino populations posed by organized wildlife trafficking, yet it still endorses a full steam ahead approach for establishing commercial trade in rhino parts and derivatives,”  said Tench. 

“When it comes to rhino protection and rhino horn trade policy, nothing happens in a vacuum. Whatever South Africa decides when it comes to rhino horn trade will impact rhinos across Africa and Asia. This is true especially for domestic trade in rhino horn products. As we have seen with attempts to trade other wildlife products from threatened species like ivory and pangolin scales, demand knows no borders and legal trade will serve only to exacerbate rhino poaching and the illegal trade in rhino horn.”