James.Grage
AH legend
Rhino horn trade pushed into the belly of the underworld
Posted: November 27, 2015
Written by: Dex Kotze
On Thursday, 26 November the Pretoria High Court overturned the ministerial domestic moratorium on rhino horn trade that was instituted in February 2009. The judgment appears to be a hollow victory for the applicants. In a swift response, the minister of environmental affairs, Edna Molewa, has announced that her department will appeal the court decision. If this is the case, her application will suspend the court order pending the finalisation of the appeal.
©Youth 4 African Wildlife
Irrespective of a legal domestic trade of rhino horn, 181 member states of CITES are prohibited from international trade in rhino horn. Two historic rhino horn consumer countries, China and Vietnam, are signatories to CITES, and China promulgated a ban on rhino horn trade in 1993. No local demand exists, hence a domestic legal trade in South Africa will be restricted to exchanges with a handful of clandestine speculative traders, who would remain mostly anonymous for fear of a backlash associated with the disgrace of the illicit endangered wildlife trade, globally known to be in the realm of dark felonies.
In September this year, the US and Chinese presidents announced a decree for a near complete ban in ivory trade. The Chinese president, Xi Jinping, has been on a crusade to eradicate corruption in the world’s second largest economy. Any support for rhino horn trade from China will jeopardise its far more lucrative campaign to trade with African economies for its other vast natural resources. Finding legitimate buyers and conforming to governmental regulations will entail a minefield of obstacles for the muffled victors of the High Court judgment. The international stigma attached to the rhino horn trade over the last few years has finally pushed this absurd practice into the belly of the underworld. Restricted to absolute legal domestic trade, this will be a business model doomed for failure. It certainly will not halt the continuous poaching epidemic experienced over the last seven years.
The Department of Environmental Affairs’ defeat in court may be an opportune time to consolidate with the Department of Justice to amend the Criminal Procedures Act to effectively curb rhino poaching and illegal trade in South Africa. A potential domestic trade in rhino horn will no doubt open up a Pandora’s Box and impair the function of state prosecutors in proving possession of illegal rhino horn by suspected criminals.
Urgent intervention is required to amend Part II of Schedule 2 of the Criminal Law Amendment Act 105 of 1997 to prescribe a minimum sentence of 15 years imprisonment to crimes of contravention of Section 57(1) of the National Environmental: Biodiversity Act 10 of 2004 when the crime involves rhinoceros or elephant. Schedule 5 of the Criminal Procedure Act 51 of 1997 should also be amended to include the offence of contravening Section 57(1) the National Environmental: Biodiversity Act 10 of 2004 where rhinoceros or elephants are involved, or the value of the threatened or protected species in question involves amounts of ZAR100,000 or more, as a Schedule 5 offence.
Prior to the rhino horn moratorium in 2009, South Africa witnessed a 640% increase in rhinos killed from 2007 to 2008. Allegations that the trade ban was instrumental in the rhino killing spree, which has seen over 5,000 rhinos killed in South Africa since 2008, are ill conceived.
The High Court applicants and their devotees may have hit a sore point and cause the Department of Environmental Affairs to re-assess any anticipated proposal to suggest international trade in rhino horn when members of the Conference of the Parties of CITES meet in Johannesburg in September 2016. Certainly promoters of trade in rhino horn have thus far failed to prove how substantial benefits will accrue to poorer communities. Legalising rhino horn trade won’t save the species, many ecologists argue.
South Africa’s government will need to carefully examine and analyse the real and sudden impact of incorrect decisions that can have extremely negative results for the South African tourism sector. The vast employment created by our tourism industry dwarfs the limited employment benefits that trade in rhino horn can offer.
- See more at: http://africageographic.com/blog/rhino-horn-trade-pushed-belly-underworld/#sthash.3DvAn4mO.dpuf
Posted: November 27, 2015
Written by: Dex Kotze
On Thursday, 26 November the Pretoria High Court overturned the ministerial domestic moratorium on rhino horn trade that was instituted in February 2009. The judgment appears to be a hollow victory for the applicants. In a swift response, the minister of environmental affairs, Edna Molewa, has announced that her department will appeal the court decision. If this is the case, her application will suspend the court order pending the finalisation of the appeal.
©Youth 4 African Wildlife
Irrespective of a legal domestic trade of rhino horn, 181 member states of CITES are prohibited from international trade in rhino horn. Two historic rhino horn consumer countries, China and Vietnam, are signatories to CITES, and China promulgated a ban on rhino horn trade in 1993. No local demand exists, hence a domestic legal trade in South Africa will be restricted to exchanges with a handful of clandestine speculative traders, who would remain mostly anonymous for fear of a backlash associated with the disgrace of the illicit endangered wildlife trade, globally known to be in the realm of dark felonies.
In September this year, the US and Chinese presidents announced a decree for a near complete ban in ivory trade. The Chinese president, Xi Jinping, has been on a crusade to eradicate corruption in the world’s second largest economy. Any support for rhino horn trade from China will jeopardise its far more lucrative campaign to trade with African economies for its other vast natural resources. Finding legitimate buyers and conforming to governmental regulations will entail a minefield of obstacles for the muffled victors of the High Court judgment. The international stigma attached to the rhino horn trade over the last few years has finally pushed this absurd practice into the belly of the underworld. Restricted to absolute legal domestic trade, this will be a business model doomed for failure. It certainly will not halt the continuous poaching epidemic experienced over the last seven years.
The Department of Environmental Affairs’ defeat in court may be an opportune time to consolidate with the Department of Justice to amend the Criminal Procedures Act to effectively curb rhino poaching and illegal trade in South Africa. A potential domestic trade in rhino horn will no doubt open up a Pandora’s Box and impair the function of state prosecutors in proving possession of illegal rhino horn by suspected criminals.
Urgent intervention is required to amend Part II of Schedule 2 of the Criminal Law Amendment Act 105 of 1997 to prescribe a minimum sentence of 15 years imprisonment to crimes of contravention of Section 57(1) of the National Environmental: Biodiversity Act 10 of 2004 when the crime involves rhinoceros or elephant. Schedule 5 of the Criminal Procedure Act 51 of 1997 should also be amended to include the offence of contravening Section 57(1) the National Environmental: Biodiversity Act 10 of 2004 where rhinoceros or elephants are involved, or the value of the threatened or protected species in question involves amounts of ZAR100,000 or more, as a Schedule 5 offence.
Prior to the rhino horn moratorium in 2009, South Africa witnessed a 640% increase in rhinos killed from 2007 to 2008. Allegations that the trade ban was instrumental in the rhino killing spree, which has seen over 5,000 rhinos killed in South Africa since 2008, are ill conceived.
The High Court applicants and their devotees may have hit a sore point and cause the Department of Environmental Affairs to re-assess any anticipated proposal to suggest international trade in rhino horn when members of the Conference of the Parties of CITES meet in Johannesburg in September 2016. Certainly promoters of trade in rhino horn have thus far failed to prove how substantial benefits will accrue to poorer communities. Legalising rhino horn trade won’t save the species, many ecologists argue.
South Africa’s government will need to carefully examine and analyse the real and sudden impact of incorrect decisions that can have extremely negative results for the South African tourism sector. The vast employment created by our tourism industry dwarfs the limited employment benefits that trade in rhino horn can offer.
- See more at: http://africageographic.com/blog/rhino-horn-trade-pushed-belly-underworld/#sthash.3DvAn4mO.dpuf
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