rhino files | consumptive tourism
In 2011, the Private Rhino Owners’ Association (PROA)
addressed a letter to the Minister of Environmental Affairs,
requesting that the moratorium on domestic trade be lifted.
During the Rhino Issue Management public hearings and
the Committee of Inquiry and as recently as 18 December
2018 to the new Minister of Environmental Affairs, Nomvula
Mokonyane, PROA proposed that a domestic trade module
be used as a template for the international community on
how sustainable utilisation, through the sale of rhino horn,
can be used to bring much-needed revenue back to rhino
conservation, job creation and rural economic stimulation.
It is a total misrepresentation made by certain anti-trade
NGOs that the privately-owned reserves want trade opened
to make money.
FIRSTLY, we are already over R1,47 billion out of pocket
(ignoring the original investment costs, land use and
management costs),
SECONDLY, the private reserves hold the smallest
volume of the horn stockpiles after provincial and national
parks, all of which are in desperate need of additional
funding to cover the cost of ever-increasing security.utilisation, and by the ability of private reserves to purchase excess animals
from state and provincial reserves. We now find ourselves in a situation where
the South African rhino population decline is a reality due to poaching.
Private reserve owners are now responsible for the protection of almost 50%
of the national herd.
So, we must ask the question, who will help cover these costs? In the current
domestic and international economic environment, I do not see any billion-
dollar donor funding, or the government’s willingness to cover these costs.
The suggestion of a tourism levy is naive, and little to no tax rebates can be
expected from the South African Revenue Service (SARS). >>
Black rhinoceros (Diceros bicornis).
Photo © Lance van de VyverWe nowfind
ourselv s in a
situation where
the South African
rhino population
decline is a reality
due to poaching.