S. African private rhino owners launch initiative to facilitate legal trade of rhino horns

CAPE TOWN, March 5 (Xinhua) -- The Private Rhino Owners Association (PROA) on Monday launched a initiative that will facilitate the legal trade of rhino horns.

The newly established online trade desk, known as the Rhino Horn Trade Africa (RHTA), aims to provide a managed, efficient platform from which genuine buyers and sellers can trade in "clean", humanely acquired rhino horns, the South Africa-based PROA said in a statement emailed to Xinhua.

The initiative will assist both buyers and sellers of legal horns when it comes to matters of compliance, including Finance Intelligence Centre Act (FICA) requirements and the verification of permits, according to the association.

Last year, PROA members voted unanimously to create a trade desk to facilitate sales and bring much-needed conservation revenue to mitigate rhino management and security costs.

The South African government introduced the moratorium on rhino horn trade in 2009 to curb rhino poaching. But private ranchers say the moratorium has failed to stop the scourge, and therefore should be lifted.

Private rhino owners in South Africa currently own in excess of 7,000 black and white rhinos, more than the rest of Africa combined (about 37 percent of the national herd).

The RHTA is working closely with the Veterinary Genetics Laboratory (VGL) and University of Pretoria at Onderstepoort to ensure that all rhino horns sold through the RHTA are first recorded on the Rhino DNA Index System, or RhODIS® database, Jones said.

This means that every rhino horn offered for sale through RHTA must possess a DNA certificate. Genetic profiling is the key control in establishing the provenance of every rhino horn on offer. By this mechanism no "blood" horn is able to enter the market.

Jones said the revenue generated from sales will be viewed as conservation revenue that will assist rhino owners to continue protecting and caring for their animals, which they currently do at great personal expense, with no incentives or outside funding.

Although last year's Constitutional Court order set aside the moratorium on the domestic trade in rhino horns, the domestic trade in rhino horns is subject to the issuing of the relevant permits in terms of the relevant laws, regulations and applicable provincial legislation in order to be able to trade nationally, the government says.

Global trade of rhino horns remains prohibited under the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora.

South Africa, home to about 90 percent of the world's rhino population, bears the brunt of rhino poaching, loosing 1,028 rhinos to poaching in 2017. Enditem