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Dear friends and fellow South Africans,

Noena, a Black Rhino, was shot by poachers and survived. In an attempt to
protect her, her owner removed her horn; the bait that attracts black market
profiteers. But the stump that was left proved too enticing, and poachers
again attacked Noena, this time firing seven shots, some into her head.
Miraculously, Noena has survived again.

The plight of South Africa's rhino has captured the public imagination as
eleven suspected poachers, two of whom are veterinarians and two women,
appeared in the docks in Musina this week. It is suspected that they have
been involved in several hundred instances of rhino poaching over the years.

Yesterday, as we celebrated International Rhino Day, bail was set for the
head of the syndicate at R1 million. Ironically, this is what he would have
paid for Noena. That is the cost of a Black Rhino.

The World Wildlife Fund has declared September "Rhino Month" and community
organizations, like Eblockwatch, have launched initiatives to detect
poachers on our country's game farms and prevent their heinous acts of
cruelty. It is not merely the images of dead and bloodied animals that touch
us, but the fact that rhino, like all our fauna, are part of our nation's
heritage.

Tomorrow, as we celebrate Heritage Day, let us consider the wealth of our
inheritance, from our cultural diversity to our natural resources, and let
us consider as well our responsibility as caretakers of the inheritance of
our progeny.

Sir Laurens van der Post once remarked that the African appreciation for the
greater value of our collectiveness, what we call ubuntu botho, can be
ascribed to the fact that our culture has remained closer to nature than
European cultures.

There have been very few instances in South Africa's history of a political
leader also being involved in conservation issues. One example is General
Jan Smuts who, as Prime Minister of the Union of South Africa, set aside the
Dongola Game Reserve, a vast area near the Kruger National Park.
Regrettably, it was ruthlessly de-proclaimed when the Nationalist government
came into power in 1948.

When I became Chief Minister of KwaZulu in 1976, I established the KwaZulu
Bureau of Natural Resources, which became the Department of Nature
Conservation. My support for conservation brought hostile criticism from my
own people, who complained that I was more concerned about animals than
human beings. Nevertheless, I do not regret what I have been able to give my
people.

I was also persecuted by the National Party Government which tried to force
me to take the great game reserves of Zululand; Hluhluwe/Mfolozi, Ndumo and
others, and turn them into agricultural holdings. I said then, and I still
maintain, that the game reserves of KwaZulu Natal are our heritage and as
such are beyond price.

I reaffirmed these convictions at the Conference of Game Conservation

International held in the 1970s in San Antonio, Texas in the United States,
where I appeared before an international audience at a very difficult time
in our history. I knew then that we were not only caretaking for our own
future, but for all the people of the world who could experience in our
reserves the breathtaking bounty of nature.

Conservation was a lonely platform in those years, but the few who shared my
convictions offered me great support. I think of the late Nick Steele and
Khulani Mkhize. Dr Ian Player is another patriot whose commitment to
protecting the rhino population cost him a great deal. By the seventies,
fewer than 500 White Rhino remained, but our efforts were growing their
number in Mfolozi Game Reserve. Some still refer to rhino as the "Mfolozi
Cockroach".

Dr Player initiated Operation White Rhino, whereby surplus rhino were
captured at Mfolozi Game Reserve and sent to the Kruger National Park and
the great zoological gardens throughout the world. It was a tough
assignment, not least because the darts that were used occasionally
backfired. Today Dr Player, who remains a great friend of mine, has lost
vision in one eye due to this dart malfunction. Yet he has no regrets.

Another remarkable man, whose extraordinary tracking skills assisted
Operation White Rhino, was Magqubu Ntombela. Magqubu had no education in the
formal sense and could not read or write, but his knowledge of the veld, the
trees, the birds, the animals and the history of the Zulu people was
unlimited. Dr Player unhesitatingly calls Magqubu his Reed teacher in a book
entitled "Zululand Wilderness: Shadow and Soul", which recounts their
friendship.

The KwaZulu Legislative Assembly in Ulundi considered Magqubu our
conservation adviser. He was also welcomed by the Royal Regiment of Wales at
Brecon, as well as being a speaker at the First World Wilderness Congress in
Johannesburg and the Fourth Congress in Denver, Colorado. For a man with no
schooling, this was a triumph of the spirit.

He and Dr Player worked together in the Wilderness Leadership School which
Dr Player founded, and of which I am a Trustee. In fact, it has been my
privilege over the years to support several conservation foundations and
initiatives, not least the Magqubu Ntombela Foundation, the Rhino and
Elephant Foundation and the Wildlands Conservation Trust, which incidentally
holds its annual "Art for Conservation" dinner next Friday.

I also founded the Tembe Elephant Park on the border of KwaZulu Natal and
Mocambique. In doing these things, I believe I am continuing the work of the
founder of the Zulu nation, King Shaka kaSenzangakhona, who protected the
game and the wildlands long before the white man came. What is today Mfolozi
and Hluhluwe Game Reserves were protected areas under King Shaka's reign. In
colonial times, and even to this day, were it not for the Zulu game scouts
protecting the game reserves, nothing would have survived the commercial
poachers.

In 1998, I travelled to Frankfurt, Germany, to receive the Bruno H. Schubert
Stiftung Environmental Award. Yet no matter how great my own achievements in
protecting our environment and no matter how committed a few patriots have
been in preserving our natural heritage, South Africa is still plagued by
the killing of its rhino.

I must point out that the eleven poachers standing trial in Musina are all
South Africans. Our own people, destroying our own heritage. Since January
this year, 204 rhino have been killed, compared with 122 for the whole of
last year. Can we really say we are becoming more civilized?

Yours in the service of the nation,

Prince Mangosuthu Buthelezi MP