The impact of wildlife crime on the rural economy in south Аfrica

1.

THE IMPACT OF WILDLIFE CRIME ON THE
RURAL ECONOMY IN SOUTH AFRICA:
THE CASE OF RHINO POACHING
____________________________________________________________________________________________
International Rural Crime Conference
Pretoria, 27 September 2017
____________________________________________________________________________________________
Anthony Minnaar
Department of Criminology & Security Science
School of Criminal Justice, College of Law
University of South Africa
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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
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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
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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
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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 rhinospecific 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
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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
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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
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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 freeranging 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
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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
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10.

Rhino killed in SA 2007-June 2017
SA Total
KNP
KZN
1215
1175
1054
1004
827
826
668
622
606
529
448
425
333
252
83
13
10
0
2007
146
122
36
14
2008
243
50
28
2009
38
2010
34
2011
66
2012
99
85
2013
2014
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132
2015
161
2016
139
Jan-June
2017

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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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’.
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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 posttraumatic 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.
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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)
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23.

Thank you
Any questions
E-mails:
[email protected]