“In a few years time SA might not be known as the country that hosted the 2010 Soccer World Cup, but the country that allowed its rhino to become extinct through lack of action.”
Director of the Wilderness Foundation, Andrew Muir, addressed the portfolio committee on the topic of rhino poaching on Thursday, 26 January 2012. Together with a number of other environmental and wildlife organisations, the Wilderness Foundation offered advice and insight into the way forward to help curb poaching in 2012. Read more

Rhino poaching: a threat to hard-won population increases achieved by conservation

Wilderness Foundation submission to the portfolio committee 26 January, 2012

A POLICY PERSPECTIVE STATEMENT FROM THE WILDERNESS FOUNDATION AND ITS NETWORK ON THE CURRENT STATE OF RHINO POACHING, AND RECOMMENDED STRATEGY TO PROTECT AND SUSTAIN THE RHINO IN THE WILD, GOING FORWARD.

The escalation of rhino poaching in Southern Africa poses a major, and potentially terminal, threat to all species of this ancient animal - a relic of the dinosaur age.

South Africa is the stronghold of free ranging rhino and is caretaker of over 80% of the world’s current rhino population. It is here that the poaching has been rampant in recent years. In 2010, a record number of 330 animals were poached. An alarming increase in poaching efforts in 2011 saw 434 rhino killed. In the first fifteen days of 2012, twenty two rhino were poached. It can be safely said that South Africa is losing rhino at the rate of at least one per day.

Abandoned at birth, Lwazi Xinwa (24) spent his first five years growing up in a children’s home in Uitenhage in the Eastern Cape. Adopted by loving parents, Lwazi spent the next eight years thriving in a stable household. However, at age 13 his life turned upside down once again. His father was diagnosed with a terminal illness, and Lwazi’s parents revealed to him that he had been adopted. “I was so angry, so many mixed feelings,” says Lwazi. “I was so upset that my father was sick but I felt angry at the same time.”