CITES! UPGRADE OUR SOUTHERN WHITE RHINO TO APPENDIX 1!

 

"critically endangered"  (Ceratotherium simum simum)

 

This petition will be delivered to CITES, CoP 17, at the Sandton Convention Centre, between the 24th September and the 5th October 2016. 

 

“Another year of poaching like 2014 and it becomes increasingly difficult to see a positive conservation future for South African rhinos,” said Tom Milliken, TRAFFIC’s Elephant and Rhino Programme Leader. “We’re facing a ‘do or die’ situation right now.”

 

That was said in 2014 and we are now in 2016.

 

Our rhino are diminishing drastically in numbers through the constant, unrelenting demand from China and Vietnam.  In 2015, numbers leant towards showing an increase, over 2014, and by August 2015, over 749 were already slaughtered for their horn!

Feeding this demand are poachers with between 80-90%  based along the border with Mozambique, and the Kruger National Park. These poachers act with impunity, having little or no fear of arrest or prosecution. Within South African borders, there is clear evidence of the involvement of game farm owners, police, veterinarians and rangers in rhino poaching. International syndicates, under the guise of 'sport trophy hunting’ have been named and arrested for trafficking of rhino horn.

 

The signing of a MoU ( Memorandum of Understanding) with Mozambique has proved useless, as the poachers continue to breach the porous border into South Africa and slaughter our rhino.

 

National and Provincial levels of the South African government,  have shown to be corrupt by enabling illegal trade.

 

High ranking wildlife officials have been exposed in having undisclosed interests in hunting operations, furthering the greed, and financial benefits resulting from the deaths of the rhino.

In 2011, exports to China (of White rhino) at the time, appeared to be part of an undisclosed commercial rhino farming venture for producing rhino horn medicines for the Chinese market in the future. Although there is no evidence of any further exports to China, the Chinese are now in the position of being able to harvest the horn for commercial use. The harvesting of the horn has in NO WAY slowed down the demand for rhino horn.

 

Enshrined in our country's constitution are the following words: 

 

“a prosperous, environmentally-conscious nation, whose people are in harmonious coexistence with the natural environment, and which derives lasting benefits from the conservation and sustainable use of its rich biological diversity”.

 

This is not happening. Neither is it happening in 45 of the listed African countries below. (Botswana, the 44th, being the exception, due to extremely strong laws, and policies in place, with regard to the protection of its wildlife).

 

Poverty continues to exist, and yet, Africa's wildlife, can through sustainable development, ease the people’s suffering. A thriving tourism industry can generate employment for a large sector of the population. 

 

We, the undersigned, hereby call upon the Parties of CITES to immediately upgrade the rhino to Appendix 1.

 

 

NB:

Appendices I and II

Appendix I includes species threatened with extinction. Trade in specimens of these species is permitted only in exceptional circumstances.

Appendix II includes species not necessarily threatened with extinction, but in which trade must be controlled in order to avoid utilization incompatible with their survival.

The Conference of the Parties (CoP), which is the supreme decision-making body of the Convention and comprises all its member States, has agreed in Resolution Conf. 9.24 (Rev. CoP16) on a set of biological and trade criteria to help determine whether a species should be included in Appendices I or II. At each regular meeting of the CoP, Parties submit proposals based on those criteria to amend these two Appendices. Those amendment proposals are discussed and then submitted to a vote. The Convention also allows for amendments by a postal procedure between meetings of the CoP (see Article XV, paragraph 2, of the Convention), but this procedure is rarely used.

 

https://www.cites.org/eng/disc/how.php

 

Listed below are the African Countries who are members of CITES. 44 AFRICAN countries.

 

https://www.cites.org/eng/disc/parties/chronolo.php

 

Nigeria                                                                               

Sudan (Accession)

Sudan (Ratification)

Algeria

Benin

Somalia

Chad

Gabon

Ethiopia

Burkina Faso

Djibouti

Equatorial Guinea

Eritrea

Sierra Leone

Côte d'Ivoire

Comoros

Swaziland

Mauritania

Sao Tome and Principe

Lesotho

Cabo Verde

Angola

Tunisia

South Africa

Madagascar

Niger

Morocco

Ghana

Democratic Republic of the Congo

Seychelles

Senegal

Gambia

Botswana

Egypt

Togo

Kenya

United Republic of Tanzania

Central African Republic

Rwanda

Zambia

Liberia

Mozambique

Zimbabwe

Cameroon

Malawi.