S. Africa sets target for ensuring population of white rhinos

The South African government has set a short-term or five-year target of ensuring the population of at least 20,400 white rhinos in the country by 2020.

The vision of the Biodiversity Management Plan is "a world with reduced poaching and demand for illegal rhino horn, where the future survival of wild white rhinos is ensured in South Africa, through secure populations which are economically and ecologically sustainable, and which provide a source of founder rhinos to help repopulate former range states as needed", the Department of Environmental Affairs (DEA) said on Thursday.

The key components of the plan are protection, monitoring, permitting and stock control, sustainability, biological management, effective communication and collaboration and hunting of rhinos, DEA spokesperson Albi Modise said.

The DEA gazetted the plan on Wednesday for public opinions. Members of the public are invited to submit to Minister of Environmental Affairs Edna Molewa within 30 days after publication of the plan.

The development of the plan for white rhinos is intended to enhance conservation of the species and is in response to an instruction from the Environmental Parliamentary Portfolio Committee as a result of the current upsurge in rhino horn poaching. It reflects on the commitment of the key partners involved to work together to curb the illegal poaching and trade in rhinos.

South Africa bears the brunt of rhino poaching, losing 1,215 rhinos last year.

The white rhino warrants special attention as a species both through its global status as well as its conservation dependence and current poaching threats. Hence, the development of the Biodiversity Management Plan for this species to ensure its long- term survival in the wild has become inevitable, the DEA said. Endi