Sharing the spotlight

The following articles first appeared in International News for Campfire, RSA Special Edition, 1997, published by Africa Resources Trust, and are reproduced with the author's permission.

Sharing the spotlight
Rhino battle could turn the tide of sustainable use war

By Simon Ward, Africa Resources Trust

In 1992 Dr. Mostafa Tolba, then executive director of the U.N. Environment Programme, warned CITES that it was channeling so much energy into the elephant debate it was moving "dangerously close to being a one-species show". Now the elephant must share the spotlight with another species of "charismatic megafauna", the southern white rhino, and if history chooses to repeat itself, this bodes well for the whole debate over sustainable use.

The broader context aside, it must first be said that South Africa's bid to trade in rhino products deserves consideration on its own merits. Through two decades of the best protection limited funds can buy, poachers still managed to decimate the black rhino population, to the point where perhaps only 2,400 now survive. In South Africa, by contrast, a combination of intensive management, expensive protection, and hunting has brought the white rhino back from the brink of extinction to a thriving population of some 8,000.

True, poaching at the continental level has been declining in the 1990s, but this can probably be attributed more to a shortage of "soft targets" than any disincentive provided by the trade ban. Indeed, poaching last year in Zaïre's Garamba National Park of the last semi-wild population of northern white rhino - after a 10-year hiatus - tragically showed that this demon is still with us.

South Africa's answer is simple and, apparently, effective: reverse the decline in funding for conservation - and protection - by maximising the economic returns from managing rhinos wisely.

Trigger

In the broader context, meanwhile, South Africa's bid to overturn the trade ban could trigger a series of events with far-reaching consequences for all sustainable users.

Led by whales and elephants, "charismatic megafauna" have for years held the spotlight in the sustainable use debate, with animal protectionists bestowing on them a stature out of all proportion to their importance to biodiversity, food chains, ecosystems, or whatever other unemotional standard by which we judge our conservation practices. As a consequence, decisions concerning their use (or, more typically, non-use) have set important precedents for myriad less charismatic species. They have become central to the decision-making process of whether wildlife can, or cannot, be consumed by man.

But a study of the three-decade-old battle over rights to harvest marine mammals reveals other precedents which, if repeated, could open new doors for the sustainable use of terrestrial mammals too.

Reversing the Tide

Firstly, we find that a rising tide of protectionism can be reversed, provided a critical mass of resource-users is achieved. The combination of those who would trade in ivory and those who would trade in rhino horn could provide the nucleus for that critical mass.

Through the 1970s and much of the 1980s, sealers and whalers were treated as pariahs by the international community, and fishermen - their most natural allies - distanced themselves from the debate for fear of being targetted next. And in due course, they were. Having knocked the wind out of all marine mammal markets, Greenpeace et al. turned on long-liners and drift-netters, and soon no commercial fishery was safe.

For the first time, whalers and sealers found a sympathetic ear among fellow resource users, and a more cautious ear among serious conservation and development agencies struggling to promote the philosophy of "sustainable use".

The critical mass had been achieved, and a stay of execution was granted to the last of the world's whalers and sealers. Nowadays, when a fishery comes under attack, other users no longer hide their heads in the sand; they close ranks. There are no more easy bans to be had. Meanwhile, be it out of a sense of self-preservation or new environmental awareness, fisheries are addressing their most obvious malpractices. Neither the fisheries nor the protectionists can claim outright victory, but on balance both humans and the environment are winners.

If users of African wildlife are to learn a lesson from this, it is that now is the time for them all - from kudu ranchers to trophy hunters - to come out in support of trade in ivory and rhino horn. In this way, they can ensure a critical mass is achieved, and spare themselves grief further down the road. Or they can repeat the mistake of commercial fisheries, and end up entering the fray late - on the losing side.

Unwanted By-Catch

The second lesson of the marine mammal debate is that when protectionists cast their net wider, they also weaken their position by catching more people with whom their supporters sympathise.

In the case of marine resources, protectionists widened their net voluntarily. The major whaling and sealing battles had been won, and a combination of natural progression and business sense (i.e., fundraising) saw the war being taken to tuna fishermen (associated with the death of dolphins) and onward. Though most protectionists claimed to be concerned only with "commercial" sealing and whaling, their campaigns also brought untold suffering to indigenous peoples and marginal communities - notably the Inuit of the Arctic Circle - who, once their suffering belatedly became known, won widespread sympathy. In the meantime, the protectionists' net was expanding to other fisheries, and coming up with an alarming by-catch of obscure peoples living outside the capitalist paradigm, such as the Meskito Indians of Nicaragua with their penchant for turtle soup.

Now the net first cast to catch commercial traders in Africa's megafauna, already drawn in by protectionists after winning their bans, is being prised open again by would-be resource users. And this time, the by-catch promises to be even harder to hide.

Rather than having a situation in which active resource users - Greenlandic sealers, for example - are suddenly deprived, there is a continent full of people who, after a century of disenfranchisement from wildlife, are only now realising that they were ensnared in the net in the first place. It is like telling everyone they are entitled to a tax rebate. They are positively jumping into the net to claim their dues!

Or, more importantly, South Africans are jumping into the net.

Golden Child

Hitherto, when southern Africa's rural communities have tried to claim the right to trade ivory, protectionists have enjoyed some success in depicting them as unwitting dupes of commercial interests. They deserved sympathy, surely, but they were being exploited by others without their best interests at heart.

Enter the "new South Africa", currently the golden child of the Western world, riding on a crest of sympathy following the demise of apartheid, and with a highly respected leader to boot. Protectionists may drown out the cries of the rest of the region, but South Africans have altogether a louder voice. They can do no wrong.

In rapid succession, events have transpired to bring the country's disadvantaged communities into the sustainable use debate. First there was birth control for Kruger National Park's elephants, which could actually reduce productivity of a renewable natural resource. Now the Natal Parks Board has re-opened the rhino debate, and has furthermore pledged to use revenues from any trade to benefit communities.

When South Africa cast off apartheid, Western animal protectionists saw a springboard to propel their message from the Cape to Cairo. Yet the springboard has a nasty crack in it: poor people who see an opportunity to better themselves through wildife.

With the support of commercial interests, enlightened conservationists, and users of other resources, this opportunity can now be grasped. And with it could come the critical mass needed to turn the tide for all southern Africans seeking to use "charismatic megafauna".

Rhino Horn Trade Again
South Africa to Ask for Zero Quota

The South African government has endorsed a proposal by the Natal Parks Board to investigate reopening trade in white rhino products, banned by CITES since 1977. The proposal - which also has the backing of Botswana and Namibia - will now go forward to CITES when it meets this June.
In 1994, CITES downlisted South Africa’s white rhino to Appendix II on condition that international trade would be restricted to live animals and trophies. Now South Africa will request a zero quota for trade in rhino products, and horn in particular, to enable it to research the market. If the proposal is accepted, the findings of its research will be presented to CITES in 1999, and permission sought then to commence actual sales.

"Serious Money"
Both the size and location of the Natal Parks Board’s horn stockpile is being kept a secret, but chief executive George Hughes is prepared to say that the stocks are "significant" and could raise "serious money" for conservation (Sunday Tribune, Feb. 10). The current market value, he estimated, was between US$1,500 and 2,500 per kilogram.
Hughes hopes that a change in understanding of what constitutes good conservation since the trade ban was introduced will win support for the proposal. "It is now widely recognised that business and conservation should be seen as allies and not against each other," he told the Tribune. "In any case, with the ban in place, we lost 90% of the world’s rhino."
According to the proposal, annual quotas for rhino products would be based on the sizes of populations being exploited, and would require CITES approval. Quotas would be so conservative that they could be "easily met" through the gradual use of stockpiles, the recovery of products from natural mortalities (currently some 230 rhinos per year) and periodic dehorning of animals, mainly by private ranchers. No animals would actually be killed to supply the trade, and as the population continued to expand, so the availability of products would increase.

Strict Controls
The key point which must be addressed before CITES will consider reopening trade is whether the trade can be controlled.
The laundering of illegal horn from other rhino species could be prevented, says the proposal, by using radio carbon isotope analysis to identify the species. Less certain at this stage is how to identify the region from which horn originated - a necessary precaution to prevent the sale of horn from white rhino populations in other countries. However, the proposal points to positive results of preliminary work to identify sources of horn by analysing the unique "fingerprint" of each horn formed by trace elements in the rhino’s diet.
As for the processing and marketing of products, it is proposed that all processing - be it for traditional Oriential medicines or Yemeni dagger handles - be undertaken in South Africa. Products would then be sold to approved buyers, and consignments sealed and sent overseas in bondage. All aspects of marketing would be handled exclusively by the Natal Parks Board on behalf of all suppliers, an arrangement to which organisations representing private landowners with rhino have already agreed.

Reinvesting
Another important aspect of the proposal is how revenues generated will be used.
The Natal Parks Board has proposed that participating management agencies retain control of revenues and reinvest them in conservation. For its own part, the Board would use revenues for three purposes only: priority conservation projects, enhancing security for rhinos, and funding development programmes for local communities surrounding game reserves.
Besides the humanitarian benefits, tending to the needs of local communities will have positive repercussions for conservation, says the proposal. "Such [human] benefits will encourage the local people to support conservation and the protection of rhinos in particular, and this is considered critical to the long-term survival of the species in the region."
"The more conservation can contribute to human upliftment and empowerment the better. ... Conservationists cannot afford to ignore neighbouring communities or give the impression that they ‘care more about animals than people’."

Powerful Arguments
Equally important as the "how" is the "why", and here the proposal is unequivocal in its support of sustainable use.
Banning international trade in rhino products, it says, has "failed to provide any significant protection to rhinoceros populations in the wild and should be discarded as a viable conservation measure".
Commercialisation of wildlife, meanwhile, has made "a very important contribution to nature conservation in South Africa", not least through live sales and sport hunting of white rhino.
These activities have provided vital revenues for rhino security programmes and biological management, while providing an economic incentive for the private sector to expand the wildlife estate, "which otherwise would be lost to other non-sustainable agricultural practices."
In the six years to 1995, live sales by the Natal Parks Board alone generated R20.68 million (US$4.68 million), while trophy hunting for rhino nationwide was expected to show a turnover of close to US$2 million in 1995 based on hunting fees and daily rates alone (excluding trophy fees, taxidermy costs, additional hotel charges, etc.).
Among several other arguments presented in favour of commercialisation is the sustainability of South Africa’s trophy hunting. Since 1968, the number of rhino hunted each year in South Africa has averaged less than 1% of the population, which has still grown at 7% annually - almost quadrupling over the same period.

A Model of Conservation - At a Price

The southern white rhino (as distinct from its northern cousin, now found in the semi-wild only in Zaïre) was once widespread in southern Africa, but by 1900 had been reduced to 10-20 animals in Zululand and Natal.
Thanks mainly to the Natal Parks Board, the population recovered, and in 1961 "Operation Rhino" was launched to reestablish the species elsewhere. Since then, more than 3,700 rhino have been taken from reserves in KwaZulu-Natal to build populations in 36 state-controlled areas and on over 100 private ranches in South Africa, while a further 30 populations have been established elsewhere in Africa. In 1995, the population world-wide (including animals in zoos and semi-captive situations) was estimated at 8,200, of which 7,100 were in South Africa.

Combatting Poaching
However, while South Africa’s population has more than doubled since 1984, the total in other range states has declined, while populations reestablished in Angola, Mozambique and Zambia since 1961 have not survived. Only those in Kenya and Namibia have grown, while the current herd in Zambia derives from new stock introduced in the early 1990s.
The principal cause of these failures has been poaching, and more specifically a lack of funds for anti-poaching measures.
Within South Africa, however, rhinos have been saved by placing them in small, fenced, intensively managed sanctuaries. But the cost has been considerable: the IUCN’s African Rhino Specialist Group has estimated that these sanctuaries cost a staggering US$1,200 per km2 per year to run. While private sector rhino conservation has been self-funded, in 1994 the total budget from the South African government to public conservation departments managing rhino was some US$79 million.

Falling Budgets
Meanwhile these departments - and those in many other rhino range states - have for several years experienced budget cuts in real terms. In the words of the Natal Parks Board, funding for South Africa’s state conservation departments is now at "critical levels", making it "increasingly difficult to maintain the levels of spending necessary for success."
It was against this background that in 1994, CITES recognised the critical need for rhino range states to develop innovative means for generating income to cover shortfalls in conservation funding. Trading in live animals was permitted by CITES for just this reason, and reopening trade in rhino products is the second innovative means to be proposed by South Africa.

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