NATIONAL NEWS - Rhino-horn-infused wine, rhino horn massages, additional hunts, and rhino horn mouldings for trophies.
Those are just some of the left-field suggestions the Wildlife and Environment Society of South Africa (Wessa) has come up with in its new drive to grow the legal value of rhino horn in the country.
If the initiative is successful, the society argues, it could provide crucial funding for anti-poaching work – the present cost of which is forcing many protected areas to sell their rhino, steadily shrinking the wild range of the species.
Bay-based Wessa environmental governance manager Morgan Griffiths said while the government had reported a recent decline in rhino poaching, the cost of keeping the poachers at bay could not be sustained and urgent innovative thinking was needed.
“The government budget for this work is diminishing and international money is propping it up,” he said.
“But there are also signs of donor fatigue. So how do we protect the conservation estate and the jobs it supports?”
Wessa’s first suggestion rethought trophy hunting, Griffiths said.
“We should encourage additional hunts, generating legal, taxable value, with the money going into conservation enforcement instead of the black market.”
