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1. THE IMPACT OF WILDLIFE CRIME ON THE RURAL ECONOMY IN SOUTH AFRICA: THE CASE OF RHINO POACHING____________________________________________________________________________________________International Rural Crime ConferencePretoria, 27 September 2017____________________________________________________________________________________________Anthony Minnaar Department of Criminology & Security ScienceSchool of Criminal Justice, College of LawUniversity of South Africa Learn without limits

2. INTRODUCTION • The impact of wildlife crime on rural economies has, over the last two decades, grown increasingly negative • Wildlife crime in all forms has pushed a number of animal species into the endangered category, with some onto the ‘nearing extinction’ or extinct lists. • The negative impact of poaching and trafficking in wildlife, not only on rural communities per se, but also touches on: - the growth of game park tourism; - the sustainability and viability of game farming - costs to park owners of securing (policing) and protecting wildlife; and - on the hospitality industry Learn without limits

3. The economic inter-dependencies of rhino hunting, tourism and allied industries • Ironically, the trophy hunting of rhino in SA, when it was again allowed from the 1970s onwards, has been directly linked to the increased breeding of rhinos by game farmers. • At that time farmers were buying, on National Parks Board auctions, a rhino for R300 (about US$35) and then charging trophy hunters (in 1982) up to US$5 500 to hunt them. • By 2008 this price had risen to a high of US$54 000 per hunt but had dropped in 2010 to US$29 000. • The lucrative nature of this activity drove the increase in numbers bred for this purpose, as well as assisting in general tourism and game viewing growth • In reality the legal trophy hunting of rhinos is an integral part of the economics of rhinos per se Learn without limits

4. The funds generated by such have other impacts on a range of issues from poverty alleviation in rural areas, to the continued tourist viability of many game reserves and parks, in particular privately-owned ones, who are in a continual struggle to survive economically. • The money earned from such hunts goes towards other activities such as breeding and re-location programmes, increasing security measures and anti-poaching activities – which are hugely expensive – • and rural upliftment projects such as building schools and health facilities in surrounding communities. • Irrespective of the public opprobium surrounding the legal hunting of rhinos for horn trophy purposes and the stiffer restrictions on such hunting instituted from the beginning of 2009 onwards sheer economic necessity of both national parks and private game reserves for additional sources of funding led to the continuation of such Learn without limits

5. Such trophy hunting is annually offered offers by Ezemvelo KZN Parks and defended on the basis that: • as particular reserves reached capacity such rhino needed to be removed – by hunting and not by relocation as such mature rhino if singly relocated did not adjust well to new surroundings • such extra income for KZN parks raised money for rhino-specific conservation efforts as part of the conservation strategy to manage wildlife; • paying for additional protective security measures for the rhino in KZN parks; and • funding projects by local residents around KZN parks. • Numbers were also reduced by public auction with annually up to thirty KZN rhinos – in family units – being sold by Ezemvelo to registered buyers from all over South Africa, as well as international buyers Learn without limits

6. Hunting industry impact • the hunting industry and spin-off services (largely tourism but also taxidermists, professional hunters and allied services) directly employ some 70,000 people in South Africa. • This number resides largely in rural areas where unemployment and poverty are far higher than in the urban areas of South Africa. • The approximately 500 trophy hunting businesses and the almost 3 000 registered professional hunters are in turn underpinned by hundreds of wildlife professionals, including game capture and translocation specialists, wildlife veterinarians and taxidermists Learn without limits

7. Rhinos & tourism • Rhinos are a key component of the wildlife tourism, game parks and hunting industries being one of the so-called ‘Big Five’ (made up of elephants, rhinos, lions, buffalo and leopards – sometimes giraffes and cheetahs also named as part of the Big5), which if any game park can list them as part of their game park, are an added draw card for game viewing. • The sale (inter alia to international zoos but also for the purposes of stocking private game reserves, as well as breeding for lucrative legal trophy hunting) of White Rhinos generated over R236 million (approximately US$35.5 million) for the main wildlife sales organizations, represented by two wildlife authorities and one private auction company over the period 2008-2011 Learn without limits

8. Poaching impact on rhino • while the total value of the rhino tourism and hunting industry had increased substantially since the 1980s, in 2012 the estimated value of the rhino population in South Africa was for the first time reduced • This was as a result of game owners withdrawing from the industry by selling off their rhino, since their view being it was too expensive either to try and protect them in private game reserves, or alternately too dangerous to continue to own and breed with them. • So the previous economic incentives for keeping free-ranging rhino in South Africa, due to their increased vulnerability and associated liabilities, as well as the dramatic increase in poaching being experienced from 2010 onwards, were dramatically diminishing for private owners Learn without limits

9. Rhino populations • The most recent thorough and comprehensive studies and census estimates suggest that there are estimated to be roughly 20 700 white rhino and 4 885 black rhino in AFRICA (25 585) • 2016 rhino numbers estimates in SOUTH AFRICA: • white rhino = between 17 396 – 19 369 (in 2015, 33 per cent of the total white rhino population was to be found in privately owned game reserves) • black rhino = between 1 822 - 2 014. • Total = 19 218 – 21 383 = 80% of African population and 75% of the total world rhino population • South Africa’s Kruger National Park is home to between 7 000 to 8 300 Learn without limits

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11. ‘Kill’ stats speak for themselves • Total – ten-year period: 6 115. • Total – five-year period: 5 116 • KNP as a percentage (5 year): 65% (3 306) • KZN as a percentage: (5 year): 10.6% (543) (impact greater since total KZN population far less than KNP) • Current 2017 stats translate to 2.93 rhino being slaughtered each day in South Africa • At this rate of attrition the rhino will have disappeared from the wild in SA within 20 years! • Losses cannot be replaced let alone grow by reproduction (low numbers 5% birthrate, long gestation period) • Have to protect them absolutely from poachers Learn without limits

12. Costs of protecting rhinos & other wildlife • Consequently, it has become expensive to protect the rhino, both in the national game parks and in private reserves. • If a private game lodge/reserve that has a resident rhino population, and depending on the actual size of the reserve, might need to employ the services of a specialist security company for this purpose, • Typically such a security company would have to deploy 10-15 trained and armed game guards who go out on patrol • Use of trained tracker dogs has also been instituted in many game reserves and parks Learn without limits

13. Some companies also undertake undercover operations or try to infiltrate the poaching syndicates • because of the large area involved – use also made of air patrols and more recently drones, which also pushes up costs. • Such a services are expensive – anything from R30 000 to R100 00 per month or more depending on how many security guards are deployed by a private security company • Such security expenses are an added burden on private game reserves and impacts negatively on their long-term viability Learn without limits

14. Driver of increase in rhino poaching • A primary driver is its lucrative and low-risk nature • In 2013 street-price for rhino horn in Asia was US$60 000 to $100 000 per kilogram (R780 000 to R1.3 million at current exchange rate) (*a rhino horn averages 1-3 kgs in weight, ave size 1.5 kgs) • At roughly $1 700 to $2 840 per ounce, still more lucrative than an ounce of gold, platinum, diamonds, more valuable on the blackmarket than cocaine or heroin • a Mozambican poacher can earn from US$5 00 to $10 000 (R65 000 to R130 000 at current exchange rate) per horn depending not only on size & weight but also on the middleman – this is a HUGE payday for the ‘foot soldiers’ – usually poor villagers recruited • Poaching gangs usually work in threes: one to track, one to carry supplies and one to shoot. If successful, the porter will get more than $4 000; the shooter, whose skills are more specialized, will probably make closer to $9 000 Learn without limits

15. Poaching-related impacts/costs • Family groups extinction: In 2015 in KZN alone close to 15 group populations of rhino on both private and state land became extinct due mainly to the pressures of poaching • Dehorning: although costly dehorning changes the risk/reward ratio substantively against the poacher. • It increases the time poachers will have to spend in a park/game farm/reserve looking for rhino with horn – increasing the opportunity for field ranger patrols to arrest them • Dehorning is a temporary short-term protective measure since the horn does grow back, so in time the poachers may well be tempted back Learn without limits

16. Rising security costs example • Phinda Reserve KZN: In 2015/16 financial year total reserve security costs were about R8 million (US$600 000) for the year • Phinda security team checks the entire fence line daily, monitor and control access into the park each day, deploy field rangers daily and conduct aerial patrols when the fixed wing or helicopters are available • The training of security field staff and field rangers is constant and they are always on standby to react to incursions or suspicious activity inside or outside the park or to react to reports of gun shots. • During full moons (when poaching activity tends to spike) involved in patrolling the boundaries and district roads and doing observations together with the field rangers Learn without limits

17. Ancillary expenses • Integrity testing on all Phinda field staff (200) every year- this can take weeks to complete and is also a costly exercise • It must be remembered that private rhino reserves are mostly self-funded in South Africa and rhino protection measures are further stretching them financially • These costs do not take into account general reserve expenses and running costs such as wildlife management and monitoring, repairs and maintenance to fences/roads/pumps/infrastructure and large community lease payments Learn without limits

18. Much of the annual security bill at Phinda is self-funded from sales of rhino and other wildlife as well as tourist operations on the reserve. • other support from NGOs and private individuals • some government support from a number of employment programmes that assist with the employment of field rangers from local communities • But all of these are not sustainable in the long run • The bottom line is that it is becoming too expensive for the majority of private and state runs parks in South Africa to protect their rhinos effectively. • In 2016 it was estimated by Project African Rhino that the cost of rhino security on private, state and some national reserves is close to R1.2 billion per annum • The DEA for 2016 had an anti-poaching budget for KNP alone of R200 million Learn without limits

19. ….and the human cost • Very little mention is usually made of the human cost of this ongoing Rhino anti-poaching ‘war’. • Many suffer mentally and physically. Death is all around, on both sides. Many die at the hands of unscrupulous local and foreign organised criminal syndicate bosses. • There have been numerous deaths (Pres Nyusi of Mozambique has claimed 500 Mozambicans have died in shootouts in the past five years). • Too many people comment (and you see it all too commonly on social media) ‘they are poachers and deserve to die’. Learn without limits

20. ….and the human cost • To others they are fathers, brothers and sons and their deaths are in vain and to serve the greed of those more powerful • We are also starting to see the effects of post-traumatic stress on field rangers and conservation staff. • Long hours, stress and the constant threat of violence and death is taking its toll. • In a recent WWF opinion poll looking at field rangers across Africa more than 65 per cent had been attacked by poachers and more than 70 per cent threatened by poachers and communities. Learn without limits

21. A concluding remark “I believe the greatest intervention required is a firm stand from both the policing and judicial fronts. Sadly, it appears that the political will that needs to be applied will not be forthcoming anytime soon. As a consequence I’m afraid to say that the future of rhino in South Africa looks bleak”. (Simon Naylor, Phinda Reserve Manager, KZN. June 2016) Learn without limits

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23. Thank you Any questions E-mails: aminnaar@unisa.ac.za