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"South Africa has made fantastic progress since installing Nelson Mandela as its first democratically elected President in 1994. Many challenges, however, remain. And for as long as many of our people remain locked in poverty it is easy to overlook such issues as the killing of our wildlife heritage.

"But the butchering of rhinoceroses in South Africa must be stopped. It is robbing our people of their precious natural heritage, robbing our nation of its ecological diversity, and severely embarrassing our nation abroad.

"I would like to appeal to South Africans not to take the easy route on this issue. Let us stop the callous brutality, the greed and the criminality that is robbing our children of their birthright.

"Poachers are reportedly killing an average of 20 South African rhinoceroses a month. Black Rhinoceros are regarded as critically endangered. There are fewer than 4000 left, most of them in South Africa. Their horns can fetch up to $150 000 a piece in the Far East.

"Among the many reasons that South Africa is special is because of its natural splendour, because of its conservation areas, because although we have become a relatively developed nation we have retained our connection to Mother Nature.

"We cannot sit back and allow a tiny minority of criminals to enrich themselves at our collective expense.

"We must applaud the recent breakthroughs by law enforcement officials in bringing some alleged poachers to book. We must pressure the authorities to assign extra resources to this task. And we must appeal to our common humanity and innate human intelligence to do what is right."