{"id":3513,"date":"2019-02-19T17:22:21","date_gmt":"2019-02-19T17:22:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/sac-news-events\/?p=3513"},"modified":"2019-02-19T17:22:21","modified_gmt":"2019-02-19T17:22:21","slug":"important-step-to-combat-rhino-poaching-but-corruption-still-a-problem","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/sac-news-events\/2019\/02\/19\/important-step-to-combat-rhino-poaching-but-corruption-still-a-problem\/","title":{"rendered":"Important step to combat rhino poaching – but corruption still a problem"},"content":{"rendered":"

New statistics for rhino conservation from the South African environment ministry point to significant progress in combating rhino poaching. However, Professor Keith Somerville, a conservation expert at Kent, said, “There is still a mountain to climb in overcoming corruption and institutional failings.<\/p>\n

“Those concerned with rhino conservation and\u00a0horrified by the continuing toll of black and white rhinos in Africa\u00a0breathed a huge sigh of relief on the 13th February, 2019, when South Africa\u2019s Environmental Affairs Minister,\u00a0Ms Nomvula Mokonyane, reported<\/a>\u00a0‘significant progress’ in implementing the national strategy to\u00a0combat rhino poaching.<\/p>\n

“She said that from 1 January to 31 December, 2018, there was a\u00a025% decrease in the number of rhinos poached, with the recorded deaths\u00a0down to 769 from 1028 in 2017. The announcement drew\u00a0praise from the NGO\u00a0Save the Rhino<\/em>,\u00a0who tweeted<\/a>\u00a0that this was ‘great news from South Africa with fewer rhinos poached in 2018 than before \u2013 and\u00a0the first time this figure has been below 1,000 since 2012!’<\/p>\n

“This is\u00a0an important step forward, even though the level of poaching remains a very serious threat, with the 2018 level of\u00a0 poaching in South Africa alone amounting to nearly 3% of the entire black and white rhino population in Africa (which numbers between\u00a024,724 and 26,532<\/a>\u00a0animals).<\/p>\n

Annual poaching figures (from Save the Rhino and Ministry of Environmental Affairs)<\/h4>\n

 <\/p>\n\n\n\n\n
2007<\/td>\n2008<\/td>\n2009<\/td>\n2010<\/td>\n2011<\/td>\n2012<\/td>\n2013<\/td>\n2014<\/td>\n2015<\/td>\n2016<\/td>\n2017<\/td>\n2018<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
13<\/td>\n83<\/td>\n122<\/td>\n333<\/td>\n448<\/td>\n668<\/td>\n1004<\/td>\n1215<\/td>\n1175<\/td>\n1054<\/td>\n1028<\/td>\n769<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

“It would be\u00a0wrong not to praise the efforts\u00a0that have led to the decline but there is still a steep mountain to climb\u00a0both in continuing to bring the numbers down and in\u00a0prosecuting and jailing those who control and benefit most from poaching, the so-called rhino horn kingpins. There is\u00a0clear evidence of incompetence and corruption\u00a0within the judiciary, some sections of the police, and even national park rangers (with two of the latter arrested in Kruger National park last month on charges of rhino poaching).<\/p>\n

“This graft and\u00a0dysfunctionality\u00a0casts a dark cloud\u00a0over what is the\u00a0welcome development in reducing the numbers of rhino poached. There is clearly still a mountain to climb in\u00a0overcoming the corruption and institutional failings\u00a0that are preventing the successful prosecution of\u00a0those who run rhino horn syndicates.\u200b”<\/p>\n

\"ProfessorProfessor Keith Somerville<\/a> is a member of DICE at the University of Kent. His book on human-lion coexistence and conflict is being published by Routledge in 2019. His study of the media coverage of the Cecil the Lion affair is available as a Kindle book<\/a> on Amazon.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

New statistics for rhino conservation from the South African environment ministry point to significant progress in combating rhino poaching. However, Professor Keith Somerville, a conservation … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":40284,"featured_media":3514,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[159353,6599,159375,124,6600],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/sac-news-events\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3513"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/sac-news-events\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/sac-news-events\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/sac-news-events\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/40284"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/sac-news-events\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3513"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/sac-news-events\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3513\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3520,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/sac-news-events\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3513\/revisions\/3520"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/sac-news-events\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3514"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/sac-news-events\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3513"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/sac-news-events\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3513"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/sac-news-events\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3513"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}