Africa's rhinos under siege


WWF's Campaign for Rhino Conservation


n October 1961, the London Daily Mirror published a "Shock Issue" for the launch of the World Wildlife Fund (known outside North America today as the World Wide Fund For Nature). It featured a black rhino as an example of an animal requiring urgent action to save it from extinction, thereby establishing a theme which has run throughout WWF's conservation programmes to this day.

Between 1961 and 1994, WWF channelled US$13 million to rhino conservation projects in Africa and Asia and pioneered rhino horn and rhino horn product investigation and monitoring of the illegal trade - more money than any other conservation organization.


One of the first projects funded by WWF (Project no. 6) provided US$56,000 for anti-poaching measures to protect white rhinos in Uganda. While the project was initially successful, subsequent political chaos provided opportunities for poachers to completely eliminate black and white rhinos from Uganda. WWF-funded attempts to save white rhinos in Sudan by establishing Shambe National Park also failed as the rhinos were all poached when the country fell into a state of civil war.

WWF's translocation of 83 rhinos from areas vulnerable to poachers in northern Zimbabwe to the southern reserve of Gonarezhou (now a national park) was also unsuitable. Although this was rated the most effective rhino translocation achieved at the time, virtually all of the Gonarezhou rhinos were swept away when the park's management temporarily collapsed some 15 years later.

Still, Africa does have some success stories. In Kenya, WWF provided funds for the electric fencing of Africa's first government rhino sanctuary in Nakuru National Park. This rhino population has increased and remains well-protected. With Za•re's northern white rhinos finally confined to Garamba National Park, WWF began to provide the park with major funding in the 1980s. As a result of intensive protection measures under the constant vigilance of the Za•re Government and WWF Project Executant Kes Hillman-Smith, this project has also helped the rhino population grow from a low of 15 to 32. But there are no grounds for complacency. In 1994, Hillman-Smith reported that wildlife poaching had increased in the north of the park and some 50,000 Sudanese refugees had also moved into the area. WWF immediately responded by allocating emergency support for the park and its rhinos from an emergency conservation fund.

Over the past 33 years, WWF, NGOs, and African conservationists have been waging an ongoing battle for the survival of the rhino. Although the rhino has vanished in the wild from many African countries since 1961, rhino numbers have increased in South Africa and Namibia, and stabilized in Kenya at greatly reduced levels. African governments have incurred substantial costs in attempting to save their rhinos, but the forces which drive poaching - poverty, corruption, mismanagement, traditional beliefs, and greed - defy some of the most dedicated efforts.

In the late 1970s, against these odds, it has been difficult to define success. In an attempt to hold off the poaching wave ravaging Zambia's Luangwa Valley, home of 3,000-4,000 rhinos as well as thousands of elephants, WWF provided SFr839,464 to the Zambian Save the Rhino Trust, an independent entity established to receive external funds. WWF's contribution represented 40 per cent of the Trust's income between 1980 and 1984. The measurable achievement - nearly 1,000 poachers were arrested, tonnes of ivory and rhino horns recovered, and hundreds of firearms confiscated - still fell short of the goal of saving the rhino population: the poachers ultimately claimed over 90 per cent of Luangwa's rhinos between 1980 and 1986.



RHINOS FARE BETTER IN ASIA

In Asia, at least for the moment, WWF support for government programmes in Nepal, India, and Malaysia has been very successful. Rhinos have increased in number in Nepal's Royal Chitwan National Park and Kaziranga National Park and a number of other protected areas in India, while the Javan rhino population in Indonesia has grown since the late 1960s. The decline of the Sumatran rhino has slowed.

Until the recent discovery of Javan rhinos in Vietnam, it was thought that the only surviving population was on the Ujung Kulon peninsula of western Java. The rhino population was estimated at between 21 and 28 in 1967 as the project got under way with WWF providing equipment for the Indonesian authorities, and supporting the work of Swiss scientists Professor Rudolf Schenkel and his wife, Dr Lotte Schenkel. By 1976 the number of rhinos had risen to between 45 and 54 and has since remained at about 50, which may be the carrying capacity of Ujung Kulon.

Little was known of the status of the Sumatran rhino. WWF funded investigations in Gunung Leuser Reserve, where Dr Fred Kurt estimated the population at 60 to 100 in 1970. Follow-up projects provided equipment and scientific assistance through research.

Sumatran rhinos were also found in the Malaysian state of Sabah in north-eastern Borneo and WWF provided vehicles to help monitor habitat destruction and rhino protection, and funded ecological studies and preparation of a management plan. Surveys to establish rhino presence in peninsular Malaysia were funded, as well as the training of a specialist in rhino conservation.

WWF projects for conservation of the greater one-horned rhinoceros concentrated on the main populations, which existed in Nepal's Royal Chitwan National Park, and India's, Kaziranga National Park and Jaldapara Wildlife Sanctuary. Despite intermittent waves of poaching, the populations in Chitwan and Kaziranga have risen substantially.

Investigation of the international trade in rhino products and end-use markets has largely been the work of American geographer Dr Esmond Bradley Martin, whose global research has been funded by WWF. His findings have provided the basis on which organizations, such as the WWF/ IUCN TRAFFIC network, have built up important information banks to assist conservation programmes.




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Copyright 1996, The World Wide Fund For Nature