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In the last two years there has been a considerable increase in rhino poaching in South Africa. According to a reply to a DA parliamentary question, of the 253 rhinos known to have been killed by poachers in the last five years, at least 104 were killed in 2009 alone. By comparison only 19 rhinos were killed by poachers in 2005. The spike in poaching began two years ago, with 87 rhinos reportedly killed in 2008. It seems evident that there is war against our precious rhino populations. The Minister and the various parks authorities need to fight back.

Winning the war against rhino poaching will be a difficult task. The demand for rhino horn from markets in Asia is growing, and its high value means that criminal syndicates will go to great lengths to obtain horns. Increasing anti-poaching personnel in the field is of utmost importance, and indeed, some efforts have been made in this regard in recent months, particularly in the Kruger National Park. But improving policing in one park may only serve to displace poaching activities to other parks, particularly the more poorly funded provincial parks. For this reason, it is important that national and provincial authorities work together to share intelligence. Of critical importance is the need to fast track the creation of a national biodiversity enforcement unit to coordinate and investigate biodiversity-related crimes, particularly for rhino poaching.

While the government has made it far more difficult to export legally obtained rhino horns in order to ensure that these horns do not end up in the illegal trade, the fact remains that that these provisions only affect the law abiding citizens. Clearly many horns obtained from illegally killing rhinos are flowing out of South Africa, even though the government does not have any statistics on this outflow. South Africa needs to put pressure on our neighbouring countries, most notably Mozambique and Zimbabwe, to ensure that those countries make it far more difficult for illegally-gained rhino horn to leave the continent for foreign markets.

Lastly, the Minister and her officials must engage with all stakeholders who have interest in reducing poaching on a regular basis. A fair amount of rhinos are being poached on private reserves, so these landowners must also be brought into the discussion. There may be many new ideas on how to reduce poaching from knowledgeable people outside of government and the parks authorities.

The Minister of Environmental Affairs, Buyelwa Sonjica, spent a considerable amount of time out of the country attending to climate change engagements in 2009. Notwithstanding the importance of that work leading up to the climate negotiations, the Minister must in 2010 ensure that she attends to a number of other pressing issues within her portfolio, including the protection of biodiversity. Most importantly, she must ensure that our protected areas achieve exactly what is expected of them: to protect our biodiversity.