Pros And Cons Of Rhino Poaaching

The issue of law enforcement was comprehensively debated by Team 6. Both the supporting and opposing camps expressed their views and concerns regarding the law enforcement in the rhino poaching space. Below is a discussion on what transpired and canvassed during the course of the debate.

The opposing camp indicated that during the course of 2014, 386 people were arrested in connection with rhino poaching (which is an increase on previous years). However, 374 of these arrests were only ‘level 1’ arrests. These level 1 poachers are the people that directly do the ‘dirty work’ and are quite easily replaced by the criminal syndicates who orchestrate the poaching. Level 2 – 5 arrests constitute people higher up the chain from receivers, couriers, buyers and exporters and they only made up 12 of the arrests. A chain is only as strong as its weakest link. One of the ‘great’ arrests was that of kingpin Hugo Ras in 2014 whose syndicate was responsible for the death of 24 rhinos between 2008 and 2012. BUT 90% of Hugo’s syndicate that faced 318 rhino-related poaching’s were released on bail. The major concerns for the opposing camp

Without this issue being given a priority, it would be difficult to have rhino poaching offenders being successfully prosecuted, convicted and sentenced. Both the supporting and opposing camps see a need and urgency of prioritizing the issue of law enforcement and it is possible to have this achieved. As it transpired in the debate on this aspect that in addressing this, the first step would be to look at the current applicable security and law enforcement measures in place for rhino protection. It should be established if they are effective enough to ensure rhino protection and most importantly, to establish if the current security and law enforcement measures are aligned with government initiatives to fight rhino