Rhino breeders in South Africa are attempting to bend international wildlife trade regulations to their will and undermine decades of South African law to circumvent the ban on international rhino horn trade.
EIA encourages China to remain steadfast in its approach to rhino horn trafficking, to enhance transparency of its wildlife crime enforcement, and to take a leadership role in the global effort to protect rhinoceroses by sharing its experiences and expertise with other countries affected by rhino poaching and illegal trade.
In the first analysis of its kind since the COVID-19 pandemic, the EIA’s offices in the United States and United Kingdom uncover how Vietnam continues to be exploited by organized crime networks to smuggle illegal wildlife products between Africa and Asia. Vietnam may be the center of this web of international trafficking operations, but it cannot solve this problem alone.
South Africa should abandon plans to build a domestic rhino horn market, and instead fully embrace collective efforts to implement the CITES ban on commercial rhino horn trade and prioritize eliminating the systemic drivers of rhino poaching and trafficking.
It is deeply concerning that a central tenet of the South Africa's draft Biodiversity Management Plan appears to be the promotion of commercial rhino horn trade – both domestic and international. EIA strongly urges that all rhino horn trade-related objectives and actions instead promote demand reduction and the strict restriction of trade in order to protect rhinos from poaching and illegal trade.
At the start of the 20th century, there were approximately half a million rhinos in Africa. Today, there are fewer than 23,000. If the current rate of poaching continues, rhinos may not have much time left.