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Rhino poaching crisis: raising awareness in Vietnam

22/9/2013

6 Comments

 
Rhinos
By Roxanne Reid
‘The carcass of the poached rhino was about a week old when the Vietnamese delegation saw it in a South African wildlife park. There was a strong smell of rot, and animals had scavenged most of the meat. Rangers found the bullet that killed it by scouring the ground with a metal detector. The rhino horn was gone, hacked off its snout.’

So begins a 17 September account by Christopher Torchia of Associated Press. This, he reports, is what happened when a Vietnamese police constable, a celebrity, a politician and an environmental activist paid a visit to the Kruger National Park as part of the Rhinose Foundation's campaign of raising awareness in Vietnam about the rhino poaching crisis.
Rhino and calf, South africa
Rhino calves are dependent on their mothers for three years
Among them was comedian Xuan Bac, who plans to use his strong social media presence to spread the message back home in Vietnam, which is the world's biggest consumer of rhino horn.

‘I saw many beautiful things in Kruger but this makes me very sad. We must do something about rhino poaching,’ he said.
Rhino mud bath
Wide-lipped rhinos (Photo: JoeDsilva)
This is one of the most positive campaigns I’ve seen to fight rhino poaching by cutting it off at the source.

Until the Vietnamese understand that rhino horn is just keratin, like our hair and nails, and has no medicinal properties that can cure diseases like cancer, rhino poaching in Africa and elsewhere will continue.

The mindset of thinking it's a 'cool' thing to own a rhino horn to show you 'have arrived' also needs to be broken because it comes at the expense of a 50-million-year old species. 

I don’t entirely blame the poachers on the ground – they’re just the small fish who are often the fall-guys, the ones who need money to feed their families.

I blame the big wigs who organise the trade on a Mafia-like scale. I blame corrupt government officials. I blame those wildlife rangers and vets who are greedy and unethical. And mostly I blame end consumers in the East for the ignorance that creates the market for rhino horn in the first place.
Rhino in museum, Berg-en-Dal camp, Kruger National Park
How tragic if the only rhinos our grandchildren will see are in a museum, like this one in the Rhino Hall at Berg-en-Dal, Kruger National Park ...
Picture
... or the dried out skulls of prehistoric creatures that became extinct on our watch
By 13 September this year, poachers had killed 635 rhinos in South Africa and hacked out their horns. That’s not far behind the 668 that were killed in the whole of 2012, and there are still three months of this year left.

Compare this to only 7 rhinos lost to poaching in 2000 and 22 a decade ago in 2003, and it’s obvious that the situation has got badly out of hand.

Parks staff are doing the best they can, supported by the defence force and many organisations raising money to fund the battle. We’ve also seen harsher sentences for convicted poachers.

But corruption and greed are strong motivators that will take a lot of beating.
Rhino in the wild
This is how rhinos should be - left alone in the wild (Photo: RayMorris1)
That’s why I think education – not so much of South Africans, but of end consumers in the East, particularly Vietnam – is a big step forward. I hope we see more of it in future, until this scourge is stopped.

What do you think of this education campaign? Will it help solve the rhino poaching crisis or not? Share your thoughts in the comments below.

Copyright © Roxanne Reid - No words or photographs on this site may be used without permission from roxannereid.co.za
6 Comments
Lucy
23/9/2013 02:32:14 am

Roxanne, I thoroughly agree with you - the demand must be tackled. I enjoyed the article.

Reply
Roxanne link
23/9/2013 05:11:45 am

Thanks Lucy. I especially like this campaign because it's not preaching to the already converted, but trying to change end users' minds.

Reply
Rian
11/1/2014 01:26:53 am

It is necessary for the Vietnamese Government to ban the possession of horn in Vietnam, and thoroughly debunk the myth (created in 2003) that horn can cure cancer. It is kept by the wealthy as an insurance policy in case they get cancer.
Even if powdering it makes a small amount bio-available, it contains a high ratio of L-phenylalanine to L-tyrosine - according to a study done in China, and will deplete neurotransmitters. Water buffalo horn has a better ratio of amino acids.

Reply
Roxanne link
11/1/2014 01:14:28 pm

I agree, Rian. It seems so obvious to us; now we have to get the Vietnamese government to agree.

Caroline Mason
11/1/2014 03:14:18 am

This is the proactive approach we need and some are trying - ENV for instance. I believe that another way to raise awareness in consumer countries is to bring the younger generation - late teens, early twenties - out to South Africa - Africa in general as SE Asian wildlife consumption is not just limited to rhino horn. This younger generation can see, learn about and experience the power, the magic of watching wildlife in the bush. See the elephant herds and how they collaborate with each other, see the mother rhino with her suckling baby at her side, see and hear the birds, savours the sounds and smells of Africa - it is truly wonderful. This sort of encounter can have a profound effect. These young people will hopefully go home with memories to savour, photographs to share and tales to tell and hopefully, hopefully change a few hearts and minds. What is needed is funds to enable this to happen.

Reply
Roxanne link
11/1/2014 01:16:30 pm

Good ideas, Caroline. Young people can keep us 'honest' with their idealism, but they need to be exposed first.

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    I'm an independent travel writer and book editor with a passion for Africa - anything from African travel, people, safari and wildlife to adventure, heritage, road-tripping and slow travel.
    My travel buddy and husband Keith is the primary photographer for this blog.
    We're happiest in the middle of nowhere, meeting the locals, trying something new, or simply watching the grass grow.
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