NAIROBI: Saving South Africa's rhinos – more than 80 percent of the global population – is urgent, the World Wide Fund for Nature South Africa (WWF-SA) has said. If poaching increases at the same rate as it has over the past two years, the species could go into decline from 2016, and become extinct in the wild by 2050, according to South African National Parks wildlife veterinary services head Markus Hofmeyr. “We believe that we owe it to the rhinos to be open-minded,” said WWF-SA rhino co-ordinator Jo Shaw, at the Pretoria launch of the organization's five-point plan to combat poaching. The plan is to build growing and resilient rhino populations; work with communities that live adjacent to rhino rangelands to ensure they gain a vested interest in saving rhinos through benefiting from rhino conservation; supporting crime investigation and prosecution; encouraging bilateral co-operation between South Africa and states where rhino horn is a sought-after commodity; and deepening understanding of how the rhino horn trade works, and why demand is growing. Before 2007, South Africa lost fewer than 20 rhinos a year to poaching. In 2008, the rate of poaching started its upwards trend, with South Africa set to lose just less than 560 this year, Shaw said. Encouragingly, the poaching rate had slowed between 2010-11 and 2011-12, she said. The WWF-SA unveiled to the media a limited edition rhino sculpture, which can be bought in bronze or gold leaf, inspired by the 800-year-old rhino sculpture excavated at Mapungubwe in Limpopo in 1933. “The Mapungubwe rhino is probably South Africa's most priceless artifact,” said WWF-SA business development head Andrew Baxter. The modern sculpture, by artist Noel Ashton, is to be sold to raise funds for WWF-SA's rhino programme. Only 100 will be made, with the bronze-leafed rhinos selling for R15,000 and the gold-leafed ones for R35,000. A single solid gold rhino sculpture would be sold, on request, Ashton said. Ashton said he had been struck by how the Mapungubwe rhino was rendered whole, and buried with a king. “It's not a piece of skin, or a bone. It's a complete rhino, and the people who made it would not have made it like that if the rhino in its entirety did not mean something to them,” he said. The sculpture is to be officially launched at an event at the University of Pretoria, where it is on display with the Mapungubwe rhino, since last Wednesday evening.
