BY JOHN NASH

On July 2, 2024, The Conversation published an article by Dr Jason Gilchrist, Lecturer in the School of Applied Sciences, Edinburgh Napier University, entitled, “South Africa’s 70,000kg rhino horn stockpile must be burnt to prevent illegal trading”. The title is self-explanatory. The good doctor is a global specialist in meerkats and has done field research into the trauma of rhino capture and de-horning and is a much-published academic.

I, on the other hand, was a lowly unwashed bush trader and prospector in Southern Africa, probably before Dr Gilchrist was even a twinkle in his dad’s eye. He would be rather less than impressed to learn that, among many other things, I bought, sold and exported bales of salted meerkat skins by the hundred in the late 1960’s and early 70’s as well as the horns of many species. I can therefore claim some pragmatic understanding of the wildlife issues and market involved. (I often wish I had the delightful naivety of academics).

Dr Gilchrist quotes, in major support, an EMS report “South Africa’s Rhino Horn Stockpiles: Intrinsic to Illegal Trade”. It is therefore very important to explain, firstly, that although the good Doctor claims that he is a scientist, the EMS Foundation’s published aims, inter alia, include “The protection of the rights of animals”. It is, in fact, a philanthropic animal rights AR organisation. For the unenlightened, AR is the non-scientific philosophy that animals should have the same rights as humans (a rather irrational belief, since we humans have used animals for food and clothing since we first became humans and will continue to do so forever). The use of EMS/AR philosophy here shows how non-rational belief systems can infect scientific articles.

The EMS report that Dr Gilchrist relies on criticises South Africa’s rhino horn stockpile because (a) it is a problematic policy, (b) crooks are involved in stealing some of it and (c) SA’s borders are porous. Hardly a revelation – we can all agree that rhino horn is a problem, that there are crooks wherever there is money and all countries’ borders are porous (believe me).  

The fundamental driver here is the demand for rhino horn and the report says horn is worth at least $10,000/Kg retail in the Far East. In a free market, farmers would respond enthusiastically to such potential and raise lots of rhinos to meet that demand, since rhinos are wonderful creatures and the horns can be trimmed and harvested like toenails without killing them.  

However, the biggest problem today is that the market is not free – because AR campaigners have managed to organise a 47-year-old ban on world trade, citing the kind of reasons exemplified by Dr Gilchrist’s article.  

The EMS report says that “We are living in the sixth extinction. It is inconceivable that the international rhino horn trade….will ever be tolerated. Furthermore, we are currently witnessing the implosion of the rhino farming industry.”  However, public intolerance and the ban are driven by international AR campaigns, not by rhino farming. The AR ban means legal rhino farmers have no way of paying for upkeep and guarding rhinos thanks entirely to the AR ban, and so, with high costs and no income, rhino farming is in decline. The AR ban and nothing else is causing the extinction of rhino farming.

Left to farmers and a free market, things would be very different. There is ample proof – missing in the Gilchrist article, of course – that although historically as a species, there were perhaps 500,000 white rhinos 250 years ago, they went down to fewer than 100 individuals by the early 1900s. Then, declared royal game in South Africa, they increased to around 400 by the 1960’s. The late Ian Player bred and spread them – and they made an incredible comeback to more than 21,000 by the end of 2012 (Source: IRF).   

This was a fantastic practical conservation success, thanks largely to rhino-keeping farmers. But now, because of the AR ban and no rational end in sight, farmers can’t afford to keep them. Farmers are giving up rhinos – conservation killed off by the very AR ban that purports to save them. It is a sorry story repeated wherever AR ideology interferes with farming and open market pragmatism. Most AR proposals are like trying to slam a revolving door.

EMS goes on to say, “…harvested rhino horns have been diverted from rhino horn stockpiles in South Africa to become a major source for the illegal wildlife trade”.  Again, If there was a free market, the stockpile would have been sold long ago. The stockpile also results from the AR ban on trade, and to “burn the stockpile because of thieves” is like saying “burn supermarkets” to prevent shoplifting, or “burn your house” to prevent burglary.

Here is another philosophical AR gem from the same EMS report, “Rather than banking on the extinction of rhinos, South Africa must embrace rhino horn stockpile destruction … to meaningfully contribute to the ethical protection of rhino populations in Africa… and to mitigate their extinction. Doing so will send a strong signal that South Africa is firmly committed to preserving and protecting rhinos, and to truly ensuring their welfare and well-being”.  For sheer brass necked cheek, that takes some beating. South Africa has conserved its rhinos, not “banked on extinction” – the AR ban is causing the extinction. If farmers could sell horn, I estimate the national herd would increase by at least 50,000 rhinos on the 9000 existing game farms in South Africa alone. They could easily fulfil the demand, bring the price down and leave the poachers with little incentive.

Please note -“South Africa must embrace… ethical protection” – rhinos were protected and were growing like hell in number until the idiotic AR inspired ban made protection funding impossible. It was imposed largely by countries that have lost all their rhinos or never had any (not the best advice, then). This “embrace protection” is another typical AR wet dream – the greatest numbers of rhinos being killed by poachers right now, in the real world is in the “ethically protected” Kruger Park, where the mortality rate is four times that of private farms. Impoverished protectors also embrace black market cash on the side.

Ethical dreams weigh nothing against $10,000 a kilo reality. The poaching rates are now sky-high because criminals see the horn ban continuing, so their investments are safe and increasing as the number of live rhinos is falling. I know – I was a bush trader – I can tell you stories that will make your hair curl.  

Meanwhile, John Hume, South Africa’s most prominent rhino farmer, recently had to give up after investing his whole fortune in rhinos and breeding up a herd of 2000. He lost none to poachers, and now his herd is likely to be distributed into all those places where they have disappeared, yet another shiny-bum bright idea. It is a criminal tragedy for rhinos and it may prove terminal, all caused by the same AR ban.

And there’s more – according to the EMS report, “…stockpiles contribute to creating a demand for more accessible rhino horn, in larger amounts. This can lead to poaching and costly knock-on effects such as a greater investment in rhino protection, and danger to those guarding the rhino. Destroying rhino horn stockpiles would signal a commitment to no-trade and symbolise the worthlessness of rhino horn as a commodity.” Lordy – you have to wonder if this scenario is being painted by the Royal Society of Arse-painters. The demand is for more rhino horn – and the demand comes from the Far East, not from the damn stockpile. It is the AR ban on trade that has put the price up, created the stockpile and led to increased poaching and killing of rhinos.  It is the AR ban that has increased the need for guarding while it has simultaneously removed any income from harvesting trimmings that could have been used to pay for the security.  

More frightening still, if you destroy the stockpile in an AR theatrical, the whole demand will fall on the remaining live rhinos, just when criminals know that there won’t be any more because of an AR “commitment to no-trade”. Even the EMS cuckoo-clock should be able to work out the inevitable result. The AR ban has already made legal rhino horn economically worthless, giving a monopoly to criminals.   

Finally, the EMS report recommends burning the stockpile “under virtue of the precautionary principle”. Unfortunately, the precautionary principle is a common AR logical fallacy that claims to prove that something is safe, when what it has actually done is to fail to prove that it is unsafe.

By far the greatest crime of all would be to burn the stockpile. The stockpile represents at least $700 million of natural resource assets that belong to the people and wildlife of South Africa, where the Constitution gives people the right to “sustainable development and the use of natural resources” not destruction of them to satisfy a foreign ideology. Only academics and foreign AR ideologues who live on the public teat would suggest burning such a huge asset in an AR publicity stunt – AR treats feelings as facts and assumes everything except responsibility.

If the world wants to fix the rhino problem, then let farmers farm rhinos and make the governments, AR charities and Universities of the world line up, buy the horn at market price and burn it, instead of making Marxian economic calculations. If they are not prepared to, let the market do it for them. That way, you increase the rhino herd and starve the poachers while you attend to damping down the demand.  

It takes market supply and demand, Doctor Gilchrist, not AR cry and demand.

John Nash is the co-author of Dear Townies (Western Press 2024). John Nash grew up in West Cornwall and was a £10 pom to Johannesburg in the early 1960’s. He started well in construction project management, mainly high-rise buildings but it wasn’t really Africa, so he went bush, prospecting and trading around the murkier bits of the bottom half of the continent. Now retired back in Cornwall among all the other evil old pirates. His interests are still sustainable resources, wildlife management and the utilitarian needs of rural Africa.