S. African cabinet approves recommendations against lifting ban on rhino horn trade

The South African cabinet has approved the recommendations against lifting a ban on trading in rhino horns, Minister in the Presidency Jeff Radebe said on Thursday.

The recommendations will serve as one of the options to preserve the country's rhino population, which is to keep things as they are, Radebe said at a press briefing in Cape Town after a fortnightly cabinet meeting.

The recommendations were endorsed by the Interdepartmental Technical Advisory Committee and the Inter-Ministerial Committee appointed to investigate the possibility of legalising commercial international trade in rhino horn, Radebe said.

The recommendations endorse South Africa's integrated strategic management approach to resolving the poaching of rhino and illegal trade in rhino, he said.

The committee recommends that the current mode of keeping the country's stock levels be kept as opposed to the trading in rhino horns, according to Radebe.

The cabinet appointed a Committee of Enquiry in 2015 to investigate, amongst other matters, the feasibility of a legal rhino horn trade.

The country's strategic approach entails security; community empowerment; biological management; responsive legislative provisions that are effectively implemented and enforced; and demand management, Radebe said.

His remarks indicated that South Africa will not propose ending the ban on the international rhino horn trade at the next major meeting of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES), the body that regulates the worldwide wildlife trade.

South Africa will host the meeting in Johannesburg in September.

South Africa, which is home to about 90 percent of the world's rhino population, imposed a moratorium in 2009 on rhino horn trading to curb poaching.

Last year, South Africa lost 1,175 rhinos to poaching.

Opponents to the ban say illegal poaching has increased since the moratorium was enacted, and argue throwing out the moratorium will discourage poaching.

Crime syndicates are believed to be behind growing rhino poaching, fueled by demand for rhino horns in some Asian countries, Vietnam in particular. Rhino horns are said to cure many diseases, notably cancer, although there is no scientific evidence to prove this.

South Africa's rhino population will be close to extinction by 2026 if no effective measures were taken, Minister of Environmental Affairs Edna Molewa warned earlier. Endit