Policy Brief and Technical Report on Rhino Poaching in South Africa

This assignment presents a policy brief and technical report on the critical issue of rhino poaching in South Africa. The policy brief outlines the escalating crisis, driven by rising demand for rhino horn, particularly in China, and its devastating impact on rhino populations, especially black and white rhinos. It details recommendations such as encouraging donations, transferring rhinos to safer locations, training anti-poaching rangers, raising awareness, and fostering international cooperation between South Africa and China. The technical report delves into the shortcomings of current strategies, emphasizing the need for multifaceted responses, including addressing the incentives and disincentives associated with poaching, and the importance of rigorously implementing existing tools and strategies. It also highlights the significance of focusing on states with significant rhino populations and their management approaches to combat illegal wildlife activity. The report concludes by underscoring the need for innovative approaches to address the root causes of rhino poaching and protect these endangered species.

Running head: POLICY BRIEF AND TECHNICAL REPORT
POLICY BRIEF AND TECHNICAL REPORT
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Author Note

1POLICY BRIEF AND TECHNICAL REPORT
Role of South Africa in mitigating the problem of Rhinoceros Poaching
Policy Brief
The black market has seen the growth of the rising demand of rhinoceros horn since
the year 20071. This increasing demand has vehemently increased the rate of rhino poaching
in South Africa. Now this situation has led the government of this nation to take some major
steps to fight back the crucial condition of this particular species of animal. The same is done
with elephants and panda as well. However, the number of rhinos is so large that it has drawn
the attention of the South African government. The rhinos are poached in such abundance
that some of the specific species of rhinos are under the threat of extinction. The most
threatened species of rhino include black rhinos and white rhinos. As per the current survey,
4800 black rhinos out of 65,000 are still surviving while only 20,000 white rhinos still can be
found in South Africa2. It is quite obvious that South Africa being the largest home for the
rhinos attract the greatest number of poachers killing an unbelievable number of 1004 rhinos
in 2013 and 1215 in the next year where China acts as the largest market to trade into rhino
horns3. The situation has an overall impact on the policy making of saving the lives of the
innocent animals, which has raised the cost of the preservation of the rhinos and giving them
1 Derkley, Tessa, et al. "A framework to evaluate animal welfare implications of policies on rhino horn
trade." Biological Conservation 235 (2019): 236-249.
2 Wright, Oliver Thomas, Georgina Cundill, and Duan Biggs. "Stakeholder perceptions of legal trade in
rhinoceros horn and implications for private reserve management in the Eastern Cape, South
Africa." Oryx 52.1 (2018): 175-185.
3 Annecke, Wendy, and Mmoto Masubelele. "A review of the impact of militarisation: the case of rhino
poaching in Kruger National Park, South Africa." Conservation and Society 14.3 (2016): 195-204.

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the appropriately safe and suitable condition to live in. This is also responsible for reducing
the confidence among the private sectors for protecting the rhinos and lessening the gross
revenue of the rhino preservation authority. This has also adversely affected the rate of the
population growth of the animal.
Recommendations
1. Preaching 8 ways to stop rhino poaching in South Africa
The people should be encouraged doing something to save the rhinos in which they
can start by donating to save the rhinos from poaching. The donation can start with any range
but it should be done for the sake of helping them. Secondly the rhinos can be transferred to
safer place so that they can be kept away from the poachers, hence; they should be transferred
at correct time to secure places where it is heavily protected. The people can take part in the
course of being an anti-poaching ranger through which they can take good care of the rhinos.

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Fourthly, they can donate to any organization, which works to develop the knowledge in
villages and different schools to enlighten the people about the importance of saving the
rhinos4. Fifthly, People can voluntarily become a representative to educate the people from
village or can donate to organization like “Save the Rhino” to do the same. Sixthly, “White
Paws Professional Training Dogs” train the dogs in a way so that they can find the poachers
along with their weapons. People can donate to these organizations to save the rhinos.
Seventhly, anyone who brings solid information about the poachers must be rewarded that
would again encourage others to be more aware and agile about the fact. Eighthly, One More
Generation is a home to look for the correct politician to be addressed. Once the people find
the right organization or the politician to be informed, they should write to them to make
them know that they are ready to support the government for being harsher to the black
market. They will back the government to bring an end to the situation.
2. Coordination between China and South Africa
These two countries often take part in the conference for mitigating the issue related
to poaching of rhinos. It has been cleared that the second MoU that took place in the year
4 Muntifering, Jeff R., et al. "Harnessing values to save the rhinoceros: insights from
Namibia." Oryx 51.1 (2017): 98-105.

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2013 was specifically intended to control the evil practice of poaching of the rhinos through
the coordination in the enforcement of the law, adjustments and cooperation with the
international convention, and other significant legislations of the nations5. After this
agreement took place, China has been seen to take the concern more seriously and has shown
great effort to cooperate with South Africa. Therefore, the best thing that the South African
government can do regarding this issue is that it can definitely incorporate its deteriorating
economic and declining environmental condition because of the increasing rate of rhino
poaching in the agreement so that the Chinese government can be fully aware of the amount
of harm their business prosperity is causing to another nation with full of potent equipped
with abundance of natural resources. China would be obliged to look through the concern
because of the agreement, which will help them to introduce effective regulation along with
the enforcement of law. It can be accelerated with the establishment of the fact that FOCAC
is a designed platform for South Africa to voice its problems and issues that are bothering the
natural progress of the nation due to the inhumanly increasing rate of poaching of the rhinos.
It should be mentioned that this platform is made to address the issues that are faced by
Africa however, it always focuses more on the problems of South Africa regarding its
protection of wildlife.
5 Saayman, Melville, and Andrea Saayman. "Is the rhino worth saving? A sustainable tourism
perspective." Journal of Sustainable Tourism 25.2 (2017): 251-264.

5POLICY BRIEF AND TECHNICAL REPORT
3. Rising the discouragement of Poaching
The intention of this strategy is to control the rhino poaching and for this, the nation
has decided to declare poaching to be a crime on both national and international level so that
people would be frightened before committing such crime even though they are offered with
lump some money to do it. A regulation on the exchanging of rhino horns is circulated so that
the markets reduce the supply and try to control it to a certain level. The first and foremost
thing that the policy concentrated on was to cut down the supply of the rhino horn in the
Chinese market as well as it focused on increasing the monetary value of the rhino horn at the
same time6. This technique is included in the policy to create an immense pressure on the
poaching industry to give up.
6 Du Toit, Raoul. "Case study of policies that support sustainable development in Africa: The Save
Vaalley Conservancy, Zimbabwe." (2017).

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4. Rising of International Awareness
Not only this, the nation has emphasized upon the fundamental technique of
preaching the people in a large scale. Rising awareness across the globe is really important to
make the people understand the worth of the situation. The raging amount of poaching and
killing the animals for making remarkable profit in international market is nothing but a
strong way of causing harm to the usual balance of nature7. It is important for the people
involved in the trade and the educated people to know how harming the environment can
trouble the human civilization in return. In initial stage, it seemed to be difficult to mend
every mind out there but the strategy looks quite successful now.
Technical Report
7 Crookes, Douglas J. "Does a reduction in the price of rhino horn prevent poaching?." Journal for
Nature Conservation 39 (2017): 73-82.

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It had been observed that even after introducing with unavoidable laws and
punishments with numerous efforts from the side of government, the rhinos are still under the
threat of poaching in South Africa. Therefore, the nation is thriving to come up with better
and stricter strategies that would bind the nation against this evil practice of killing the
animals for the sake of gaining profit. There are certain shortcomings involved in the whole
process of trying to control the poaching of rhinos in South Africa. However, there are three
significant realizations regarding the policy that has been planned out by the government
even after analyzing the shortcomings of the policy8.
Firstly, it needs to be realized that the issue of rhino poaching must have multiplicity
of responses because the nature of response clearly depend on whether it has incentive or
disincentive communication or not at a given time. This is an illegal act that bridges a
relationship and kind of an interaction between delving into performing a crime with
accepting the risks associated with it. As far the rule of international price is concerned, the
incentive of rate of rhino horns in this business tends to increase at a particular rate. The rise
of the price level operates in a simple way like with the rise of the price of the particular
commodity, the prevailing price level increases in the market exponentially. However, it
cannot be dined that the price level functions in a different way in case of disincentive
interaction that is not really understandable rather sounding it more superficial and elusive.
Since this system offers variability in the price of the different commodity, the scope
increases, resulting in the rise in problem regarding the pricing policy. The worst problem
that the nation has to face when the price of the rhino horns rise to an uncontrollable level
8 Chapman, Laura A., and Piran CL White. "Stakeholder perspectives on the value and challenges of
private rhinoceros ownership in South Africa." Human Dimensions of Wildlife 25.2 (2020): 187-197.

8POLICY BRIEF AND TECHNICAL REPORT
that the prevailing disincentives become less powerful and is overshadowed by incentives
naturally9.
The government and the animal reservation authority have observed through recent
years that there have reactive responses on the case of rhino poaching throughout the country.
Now, these reactive responses include the enforcement of enhanced law along with
dehorning. These have directly addressed the issues of rhino poaching and are expected to
solve the problem effectively. The survey on the issue of maintain the account of rhino
poaching of South Africa reveals that these reactive responses have been successful till the
time and are expected to work in the same way for approaching years until the issue is
eradicated forever. However, it should be kept in mind that with the enforcement of laws with
similar kind of nature are not going to be as effective as them because the poachers and the
traders are already aware of them. Therefore, the government and the authority of the
preservation committee must look for something new and stronger that can effectively find
out and reach the base of the problems like the exasperating demand for the horns of rhinos.
Hence, it would have been easier for them to comprehend which kind of law would be
9 Massé, Francis. "Anti-poaching’s politics of (in) visibility: Representing nature and conservation
amidst a poaching crisis." Geoforum 98 (2019): 1-14.

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effective to control the whole system of poaching10. However, introduction of new laws does
not imply that the laws that were already in practice would be disposed off rather they would
be in exercise along with the functioning of the new laws.
The second point that has come to surface is that the tools those already exist for
solving the problem of poaching of rhinos in South Africa along with the strategies that are
taken into consideration are not vigorously and religiously practiced11. There is a solid reason
behind falling short of the execution of the tools and that is the unavailability of the
strategies. Therefore, this leads the authorities of the conservation committee to face with
some difficult challenges. With the lofty process and rules set by CITES it can be surely said
that trading of rhino horns in the international market seems to be quite impossible in the
forthcoming future. Therefore, a concept of introducing an alternative interactive way to get
into the root of the issue by considering tactics and strategies of opening the provision of
horns, which are not used exclusively for trade relation and hence, these horns are not also
restricted by the rules and regulations of the procedure of CITES12. It is clear that even
though having some possibility of bringing in some positive effects that would be surely
eliminated by the ban that government has imposed on the domestic business regarding the
horns of the rhinos available in the consumer states of South Africa.
10 Büscher, Bram, and Maano Ramutsindela. "Green violence: Rhino poaching and the war to save
Southern Africa's peace parks." African Affairs 115.458 (2016): 1-22.
11 Brandt, Femke. "Securing wilderness landscapes in South Africa: Nick Steele, private wildlife
conservancies and saving rhinos." (2016): 165-167.
12 Büscher, Bram. "‘Rhino poaching is out of control!’Violence, race and the politics of hysteria in
online conservation." Environment and Planning A 48.5 (2016): 979-998.

10POLICY BRIEF AND TECHNICAL REPORT
The last realization is very important regarding the technical aspect of saving the
rhinos from poaching in South Africa because it focuses particularly on those stares where
the number of rhinos is clearly noticeable and must be addressed as soon as possible to save
them from illegal wildlife activity. Now, the concerning point regarding the states where a
great number of rhinos dwell is expected to have a great management approach towards
saving its natural resources like that of the horns of rhinos. These management approaches
must be really effective otherwise these call for an improvisation and transformation, if
required. Aiming at the shorter term, the management authorities for saving the rhinos are to
some extend manipulated to act in a reactive manner and should definitely focus on
indications and signs of the rhino poaching through the responses of their management
system. These responses are naturally very demanding in case of functioning. These are also
expensive to be executed and have much complex technical involvement in the whole process
that can cause difficulty at initial stage13. However, this would successfully raise the intensity
of propelling risk towards the forthcoming risks of the poachers who are not that professional
yet. It would also generate a familiar significant determiner of crime under the level of
expected price level at time. Now this is reflective of creating new opportunities to make
rooms for other conservations as well. However, the authorities have to be at a state to accept
the fact that it can also bring other outcomes regarding other conservation issues.
This complexity can lead to the breaking down of organized crimes like selling of
rhino horns. This crime cannot be done singlehandedly therefore, it needs a racket of more
than 50 to 60 people to be incorporated in the crime among which one part will be gathering
13 Coetzee, Laurenne, and Ed Couzens. "Keeping the rhino (debate) alive: Swaziland's proposal at
CITES CoP17 in 2016." South African Journal of Environmental Law and Policy 23.1 (2017): 217-
254.

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the information regarding the animals and the government policy and the risks associated to it
while some will be directly connected to the field of killing and poaching the rhinos and the
rest are involved directly in the trading system that generates the huge amount of money
completely neglecting the fact they are causing unavoidable harm to the nature that cannot be
fixed. However, it has to be remembered that the demand of the rhino horns can increase time
and again without any prior notice like that of the bulging demand that Vietnam had to face
once14. Now, these situations are exceptionally challenging because the price level also
increase in an unbelievable way, which lead the traders to influence the poachers to commit
the heinous crime with the enticement of huge amount of money. This kind of special
situation needs special sort of addressing. The prevailing systems of management are still fine
to cope with the problems of regularity but these are not that powerful to solve the issues of
rhino poaching in time of high demand in market.
It has been understood from the discussion that the government has come out with
some specific ideas and strategies to mitigate the problems regarding the issues of poaching
of rhinos in South Africa. However, there are some problems associated with the nature of
the direction in which the market is flowing and the trade is working. Therefore the strategies
that are intended to use in the policy are severely checked throughout the course of action
along with continuous revision so that if any problem arise in the ongoing process that can be
mitigated immediately. The report deals with how the entire nation is involved in saving the
resource of the enormous corpus of wildlife that it possesses. The awareness program is
introduced for making everybody aware about how the rhinos are wronged every time just to
satisfy the filthy greed of some traders. This helps the people of South Africa to understand
14 Rademeyer, Julian. "An Unwinnable War: Rhino Poaching in the Kruger." Militarised Responses to
Transnational Organised Crime. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham, 2018. 43-59.