Rhinos In The Wild

Saving 60 million years of evolution


Executive Summary


tare into the face of a rhinoceros and you discover 60 million years of evolution. This prehistoric-looking creature which wallows in the swamps of southeast Asia, India, and Nepal, and wanders in woodlands and savannah south of the Sahara, and whose ancestors lived in Europe and North America, is one of the planet's most tenacious survivors. Black rhinos have even adapted to the desert environment of northwestern Namibia. Yet, in less than a quarter of a century, humans have driven this remnant of the world's mysterious ages to the edge of extinction. Now, fewer than 12,000 wild rhinos survive in Asia and Africa. One species has been almost extinguished. In the short fraction of time between 1970 and 1994, some 95 per cent of Africa's black rhinos were wiped out. By 1993, there were only 2,550 black rhinos left.

Hundreds of species of rhinos once roamed the earth, but only five exist today. All of them are threatened, and some are in grave danger. These five species are Africa's black rhinoceros Diceros bicornis, the white rhinoceros, Ceratotherium simum, Asia's Javan Rhinoceros sondaicus, the Sumatran, Dicerorhinus sumatrensis, and the greater one-horned rhinoceros unicornis.

While this unprecedented loss of rhinos was due in part to land conversion and habitat destruction, the major cause of death was driven by the demand for the rhino's horn and other parts for use in traditional Chinese medicine and in North Yemen for use as decorative dagger handles. At the height of the massacre in the 1970s and early 1980s, six Asian countries - China, North Yemen, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Japan and South Korea - were buying up most of the rhino horn. China holds by far the biggest recorded stockpile of rhino horn in the world, weighing over four tonnes. During the 1970s alone, 50 per cent of the world's remaining rhinos disappeared.

Asia's most endangered rhino species is the Javan, which lives secretively in dense forests in Indonesia's heavily guarded Ujung Kulon National Park and in Vietnam's Nam Bai Cat Tien National Park, where tighter security is needed, and where logging and agricultural conversion must be stopped. The Sumatran rhino, whose last stronghold is in Indonesia and Malaysia, is under constant threat from poachers.

When WWF was founded in 1961, it established a campaign theme that has run through its conservation programmes to this day: save the rhino from extinction. In October 1961, the London Daily Mirror published a "Shock Issue" for the launch of WWF, featuring a black rhino as an example of an animal which requires urgent action to save it from vanishing from the face of the earth. WWF is the only organization to tackle conservation of the species on every front - from trying to halt uncontrolled hunting and the illegal trade in rhino horn, and other parts, to stepping up protection and support for new and existing protected areas and rhino reserves. WWF has also funded capture and translocation of rhinos to secure areas and experimental dehorning. In addition, it is evaluating the benefits of dehorning both in terms of anti-poaching and biological effects on the animal. Community-based projects in areas where rhinos live have also been initiated with promising success in Nepal, Indonesia, and Namibia.

Between 1961 and 1994 WWF channelled about US$13 million to direct and indirect rhino-related conservation projects in Africa and Asia, including pioneering investigative research such as rhino horn trade monitoring. In later years, this undercover work has been carried out through support for the WWF/ IUCN TRAFFIC Network.

Because of the urgent actions often needed, WWF has set up an Africa emergency fund for rhino conservation. This fund allows WWF to respond quickly to help government agencies, park officials, law enforcement officials or scouts to meet critical rhino conservation needs.

Catastrophes, such as war, occupancy of protected areas by insurgents, disease, flooding, and drought, have over the years seriously affected the livelihoods of human populations in some areas. These events have also severely set back conservation efforts. But WWF has remained on the front lines of the environmental movement in an attempt to prevent species like the rhino disappearing from the planet.

Although the rhino has vanished in the wild from many African and Asian countries, its numbers have increased in recent years in Kenya, South Africa, Namibia, India, and Nepal, and stabilized in Zaire, thanks to these governments' and WWF's long-standing dedication.


Picture of a Sumatran rhino and a White rhino
            Sumatran rhino                             White rhino
In spite of intensive anti-poaching efforts and clampdowns on illegal wildlife dealers, recent TRAFFIC investigations reveal that traditional Oriental medicine made from rhino horn is still being sold illegally worldwide. The main users are in China, Singapore, Malaysia, Taiwan, South Korea, and Hong Kong, and wherever Chinese communities live, including the USA and Europe. In 1994, undercover research in the United Kingdom and the USA exposed the sale of illegal products claiming to contain rhino horn. According to TRAFFIC International, from 1988 to 1992, 100,000 items of rhino products were recorded in trade, virtually all of which were exported from China. Most of these products are made from the horns of African rhinos. During 1992-93, South African police seized 128 white rhino horns.

In late 1993, a team of TRAFFIC investigators found that the consumption of rhino horn in South Korea could be as high as 300kg per year, which would account for the deaths of more than 100 African rhinos. Just months before the investigation began, South Korea had acceded to the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES), and it renewed steps to en-force a 1983 national law which calls for an import ban on rhino horn and its derivatives.

Bowing to international pressure by some CITES member states and non-governmental groups including WWF, China (1993) and Taiwan (1989) also banned the sale of rhino horn and its use in traditional medicine. In 1990, Taiwan required registration of privately held rhino horn stock, but as of October 1994 there were still no penalties for failure to register. In August of this year, 12 rhino horns, allegedly imported from Malaysia in March 1994, were seized in Taiwan. In an unprecedented and controversial move, the USA in August 1994 imposed (under the Pelly Amendment) wildlife trade sanctions on Taiwan for its failure to enforce measures against the illegal rhino horn trade. WWF and TRAFFIC are continuing to monitor current enforcement and effectiveness of the trade bans and are seeking replacement remedies for rhino horn which are similar to, or based on, traditional Chinese medicine.

African and Asian governments have incurred substantial costs in attempting to save their rhinos, but the forces which drive poaching - poverty, corruption, mismanagement, deeply held traditional beliefs, and greed - have combined to become some of the most powerful and ruthless ever launched against a wild species.

Urgent steps must be taken to curb the rhino horn trade at the national and international level. Anti-poaching efforts must be strengthened wherever rhinos live, habitat needs to be protected from fragmentation and degradation, governments need to clamp down on corruption and improve management, and technical expertise must be exchanged between range states.

Communities living in, or near, protected areas where rhinos survive should be encouraged to be involved in their management and reap benefits from their existence. Above all, the link between the illegal trade in rhino horn medicine and the disastrous effect it is having on the world's endangered rhinos must be made clear through culturally sensitive publicity campaigns, particularly in consuming countries. These campaigns must recognize sociological, economic, and political conditions as well as health practices and traditions which date back thousands of years. Only if we reach, indeed touch the hearts, of people who have used the rhino as a source of healing for centuries and convince them to conserve this animal, can we save the creature which has been on the planet for tens of millions of years.


Picture of an Indian rhino, Black rhino, and a Javan rhino
       Indian rhino               Black rhino                Javan rhino



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Copyright 1996, The World Wide Fund For Nature