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.
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.
The Environmental Investigation Agency welcomes the opportunity to submit comments and recommendations to the South African National Department of Forestry, Fisheries and the Environment (DFFE) on the Draft National Biodiversity Economy Strategy.
EIA welcomes the opportunity to submit comments and recommendations on South Africa's Draft Policy Position on the Conservation and Sustainable Use of Elephant, Lion, Leopard and Rhinoceros.
In 2017, rhino poaching started to increase in Botswana as poachers began killing rhinos in the vast Okavango Delta region in the northwest of the country. EIA’s situational analysis highlights some of the key issues facing Botswana’s conservation sector and contains EIA’s recommendations for actions to be taken by Botswana and CITES CoP19. Read the […]
EIA encourages CoP19 to reject the proposal from Namibia and Botswana to transfer Namibia’s population of southern white rhino (Ceratotherium simum simum) from Appendix I to Appendix II with an annotation limiting commercial trade to live animals for in-situ conservation only and hunting trophies. CITES Parties voted against the adoption of a very similar proposal […]