'Mafia' targeting SA rhino?
   

iol.co.za
April 16 2010
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Sophisticated "mafias" have turned their eyes south and are behind the huge increase in the number of rhinos poached in South Africa over the past three years.

Since January 1 this year, a total of 55 rhino have been killed for their horns at reserves around the country, Environmental Affairs Minister Buyelwa Sonjica told MPs in the National Assembly on Friday.

Speaking during debate on her department's budget vote, she said the total poached could reach 163 by year end.

"Rhino poaching is really a big challenge. This year we are already at 55, in terms of what has already been poached. We are predicting that by the end of this year, there will be 163.

"We are working with all of the security forces [because] we are dealing with sophisticated mafia, from Asia, from all over the world," she said.

At a parliamentary media briefing later on Friday, the department's deputy director general for biodiversity and conservation, Fundisile Mketeni, said the syndicates had managed to suborn staff at reserves to help them kill rhinos.

"They [the syndicates] go to the parks and reserves themselves. They start getting some of our own staff to use them as sharpshooters," he said.

Asked if staff had been arrested for this, he replied: "Yes, there are people behind bars - some of the staff who were operating in Kruger."

Mketeni said he did not know how many had been arrested.

Speaking at the briefing, Sonjica said she believed the poaching had intensified for commercial reasons.

"For me, it really is for commercial interests," she said.

Fundisile said South Africa's rhino herds, both black and white, totalled 20 000. The herds' breeding rate was about 6.6 percent a year.

It was the number of rhino in South Africa which had made the syndicates, who previously operated further north, turn their eyes south.

"Because of our [conservation] successes, our [rhino] numbers are increasing very well. There's a decline of rhino populations in Africa. Most of the population is now down south, with us.

"South Africa has now been found to be the area with large populations."

He suggested the poaching syndicates were obtaining information from people involved with rhino conservation.

"Now imagine the syndicates now working with the same people who are monitors... They [the rhino] become in that case easy targets."

The demand for rhino horn in the East was very high, Mketeni said.

Sonjica told journalists her department was set to establish a National Wildlife Reaction Unit , which would work alongside the department's environmental management inspectorate - the so-called Green Scorpions - to tackle the poaching problem.

Between 2006 and 2009, about 260 rhino were killed by poachers in South Africa. In 2005, 19 rhino were killed.

Rhino horns are used in traditional Asian medicine, and for dagger handles in Yemen and Oman. According to reports, rhino horn is now more valuable than gold, trading on the black market for about US60 000 a kilogram. - Sapa

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