Selling the Rhino in South Africa: VICE News Tonight on HBO

Data released this week shows that the number of white rhinos
killed for their horns in South Africa dropped by 10% in 2016.
That's only a minor abatement,
after an unprecedented rise in poaching over the last decade
reduced the world's population of white rhinos to just 20,000.
South Africa is home to the majority of them,
even though the country only banned the trade of rhino horns in 2009.
The trade has been illegal internationally for 40 years.
The government hoped the ban would, quote,
"curb the demand for horn and horn products and reduce poaching."
It's easy to get on board with that argument.
But John Hume, the world's largest rhino rancher and conservationist,
disagrees with the trade ban's underlying premise.
And, in May last year, after a long legal fight,
South Africa's Supreme Court sided with Hume.
The State of the ban is now in flux.
— This is the horn that you witnessed being cut off there.
It's been cut in the dead part of the kerotin,
in the non-growing part,
like you would cut your nails off.
So just like your nails, it's not painful to the animal,
but because it's a wild animal, obviously,
we've got to sedate it, in order to do the procedure.
— Rhino breeder John Hume and his team
have stockpiled nearly five tons of rhino horn.
He has nearly 1,300 rhinos
on this property outside Johannesburg.
— The only way to save rhinos, in my opinion,
is to breed them and protect them.
And, in order to pay for the huge cost of protecting,
if we are not allowed to get the cost of that protection back
from selling the rhino horn, rhinos will go extinct.
— One kilogram of rhino horn, about 2.2 pounds,
can fetch up to $65,000 on the black market,
higher than gold and cocaine,
fuelling a surge in rhino poaching.
Only 13 rhinos were killed by poachers in South Africa in 2007,
whereas 1,054 rhinos were killed in 2016, less than a decade later.
— Remember, it takes practice, practice, practice.
— In addition to the ban,
the South African government is actively funding anti-poaching initiatives...
— Go, go, go, go!
— ...including the training of ranger staff
to combat poachers who now use night-vision goggles,
veterinary tranquilizers, and silencers.
— The kind of poacher we are meeting up here with is completely different.
So the training has completely escalated.
We've got people out there,
thousands upon thousands of man hours
is spent on protecting rhinos.
— But these initiatives come at a massive expense
that the pro-trade lobby says is unsustainable and counterproductive.
— In February 2009, when the moratorium was introduced,
we virtually said to the world,
"Go away, we will never sell you another rhino horn."
They did go away.
They went to Mozambique,
and did a deal with the poor Mozambican villagers
to slaughter our rhinos and supply the east
with horn from dead rhinos,
instead of what we could have done,
go on supplying them with horn from live rhinos.
The horns that Hume has accumulated could garner
nearly $300-million with today's estimate,
leading some to believe the motivation is financial,
rather than conservationist.
But Hume and the pro-trade lobby say that their legal inventory
would stem the demand for illegal poaching,
while subsidizing the enormous cost of conservation.
— I have real sympathy for the private owners,
because they are absolutely hemorrhaging cash on security.
How on earth do they pay for that?
— U.K.-based Save the Rhino is the world's leading rhino advocacy agency.
It's monitoring the ongoing trade ban debate in South Africa.
— So, if a legal method of raising money disappears,
what are the private owners supposed to do?
It's not just for commercial reasons.
They love their rhinos.
Absolutely believe John Hume when he says
he really cares about his rhinos.
He wants a healthy, viable population.
But it costs a hell of a lot of money,
and, somehow, they've got to raise that.
Selling rhino horn would be one way of covering those costs.
— The South African Ministry of Environment
denied our request for comment.
— We're not winning the war.
Why can't we see it? It's staring at us in the face.
Every day, rhinos do not pay.
And, therefore, they will not stay.

Selling the Rhino in South Africa: VICE News Tonight on HBO

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