Today is World Rhino Day

22 SEP 2015 (original Patch post date)

Ahead of World Rhino Day today, Damien Mander, founder of the International Anti-Poaching Foundation, was in Los Angeles to talk with activists and influencers about rhinos, the rhino poaching crisis and his work in South Africa, home to 75 percent of the world’s rhinos.

Following a nine-year military career which included 12 tours of duty in Iraq, Mander was reborn in Africa as a conservationist and began applying his military skills in 2009 to saving animals from poachers – fighting the “Rhino Wars,” which started ratcheting up in 2008. In 2007, there were 13 rhinos poached in South Africa; the number shot up to 83 in 2008, and more than 1,200 rhinos were poached in 2014.

Many are familiar now with population collapses among the big cats, elephants, giraffes and polar bears. But the rhinoceros, a big, happy plant eater and the world’s largest mammal after the elephant, also is threatened by the high level of poaching and possible extinction – add yet one more unique creature to the list of man’s attacks on his own home; Earth has lost half of its wildlife in the past 40 years.

Rhinos are poached primarily for their horns. While having no medicinal benefits, rhino horn nonetheless is used to “treat” a variety of health conditions, with Vietnam being one of the largest subscribers to this illegal trade; horn has been part of their home remedies for 2,000 years.

The rhino poaching crisis is complex, involving a decades-long ban on rhino horn trade, corruption and a culture that sees no intrinsic value in wildlife. The largest rhino population in the world also lives next to one of the poorest countries in the world, Mozambique, where population has exploded from 6.4 million in 1950 to 26 million today and is expected to double by 2050, and where some 230 species are threatened.

Solutions too will be complex. Sustainable economic opportunity and reducing population to sustainable numbers where a good quality of life for all – including wildlife – is possible are part of the solution. Resolving trade issues, fighting corruption, attacking an international pipeline for rhino parts and reducing demand, as well as instituting tougher laws and penalties on poachers, traffickers and the criminal networks, and “winning hearts and minds,” all have to happen too, Mander says.

Many of the solutions are longer term “processes.” Mander’s work, however, is immediate, as he and IAPF work at the very front of this crisis, part of the “thin green line” to stop animal killers in their track. “Chasing poachers is not the solution,” Mander knows, adding, “We’re the guys who buy time.”

World Rhino Day (or any day!) is a good day to thank IAPF and Damien Mander for the difficult and challenging front-line work they are committed to in order to protect biodiversity.

“It’s a global responsibility to protect these animals. If we can’t save these and other animals,” says Mander, “there’s no help for us.”

Contact USA@iapf.org to contribute.