ÐÓ°ÉÔ­´´

On the arid, remote hill country of northwest Namibia, where sparse
thornbrush and poisonous euphorbia shrubs break the monotony of rocks and
sand, lives Africa’s largest population of truly wild black rhino. Finding
them is far from easy. It demands an exhausting day with expert trackers,
many of whom are quite literally poachers turned gamekeepers.

Working with local conservationists, the trackers use their old poaching
skills to keep tabs on the rhinos, trailing them for hours, sometimes days,
across the barren landscape of Damaraland and Kaokoveld. The slightest clues
– an upturned stone, a broken twig or sand scattered across a bare rock
– are all they have to go on.

Their painstaking efforts have revealed that over 100 rhinos now live
in the area, compared to less than 60 a decade ago. The figures are part
of a broader success story: the fact that rhino poaching is being halted
all over Namibia. A range of innovative anti-poaching strategies, backed
by the World Wide Fund for Nature, has helped Namibia’s rhino population
first to stabilise, and then slowly to recover. At present the population
stands at around 500 animals.

The rhinos of Damaraland are particularly vulnerable to poachers. The
vast areas over which they roam mean that more traditional methods of protection
such as anti-poaching patrols are all but useless. Instead, Namibian government
conservationists have relied on one of the more imaginative, not to say
controversial, methods of deterring poachers: removing the horns from selected
rhinos, thereby cheating the poacher of his prize.

‘Dehorning’ in Damaraland started in 1989 (New ÐÓ°ÉÔ­´´, Science, 18
November 1989) when conservationists were at a loss to know how to deal
with an upsurge in poaching. The upsurge coincided with the last months
of the bush war preceding Namibia’s independence in April 1990, during which
high-powered weapons became widely available to the local people. Around
25 rhinos were killed in northern Namibia then, and the population of Damaraland
was particularly badly hit.

The idea for dehorning evolved from conservationists’ experiences of
moving rhinos, sedated, away from vulnerable areas. Removing the ends of
horns, or ‘tipping’, became the main way to avoid damage to the horns during
the journey. The ease of the operation encouraged the Game Capture Unit,
based at Etosha National Park, to attempt to remove a whole horn. So far
a total of 12 rhinos have been dehorned.

Worthless prey

Fortunately, the open nature of the terrain makes the absence of horn
on a rhino conspicuous from a distance; poachers can see it is a worthless
catch before they fire. Whether the same would be true in thick grassland
or bush is unclear, though we may soon find out. Zimbabwean conservationists
have recently embarked on a dehorning experiment in the comparatively lush
grounds of Hwange National Park.

Another factor which makes dehorning practicable in Damaraland is the
scarcity of potential predators. There are only a few lions and hyena, which
have been known to take rhino babies. Nor do the rhinos seem to need their
horn for feeding purposes such as bulldozing down small trees to reach the
foliage.

Since the experiment began two years ago, the dehorned animals have
been closely monitored for ill-effects. Zoologists had predicted that dehorned
animals would have problems, ranging from defending their young, to relating
to – and indeed mating with – rhinos with horns. The Game Capture Unit insists,
however, that the operation has worked like a dream. Dehorned females have
mated with normal males, producing at least three calves which the mothers
have successfully defended against predators. In every respect they appear
to behave as normal.

Certainly, dehorning seems to do nothing to still the animal’s notoriously
unpredictable temper. One rhino recently gave emphatic proof of this when
it charged a team filming it for a documentary. After scattering the crew,
the rhino unceremoniously smashed their equipment with its hornless, but
still lethal, snout.

Conservationists may have allayed the worst fears about dehorning, but
does the approach work? The fact that no dehorned rhino has yet been shot
suggests it does. And although the operation will need repeating every few
years (rhino horns regrow at an annual rate of roughly 8 centimetres for
the front horn, and 5 centimetres for the rear) dehorning is relatively
inexpensive compared with the costs of employing teams of armed wardens.

We may not, however, have seen the last of the controversy. At present
all horns that are removed are added to a growing pile in government bank
vaults. The ban on trade in rhino horn, made by the Convention on International
Trade in Endangered Species (CITES), means that countries like Namibia
cannot sell their stocks to raise money for ploughing back into conservation
schemes. The policy of selling stocks is fiercely supported by every conservationist
I met in Namibia, but strongly opposed by international groups such as
the WWF. To legalise even a limited amount of trading in rhino horn, the
WWF argues, is to risk triggering an upsurge in poaching worldwide.

But this argument is unlikely to stop Namibia pressing for the right
to sell some of its horns. Recent techniques for tracing the geographical
origin of horn samples, which Colin Tudge describes in the main part of
this article, could strengthen Namibia’s hand. If it does prove possible
to trace horn origins to within a few kilometres, then in theory one could
restrict trade to horns obtained by dehorning.

Elsewhere in Namibia other anti-poaching strategies are also recording
surprising victories. A new 21-strong Anti-Poaching Unit has been set up
in Etosha with funding from the WWF. In its first two years, the unit has
slashed the number of rhinos poached from 22 in 1989, to just one in 1990
and none so far in 1991. The unit has been forged, surprisingly, from a
mixture of ex-fighters from SWAPO (South-West Africa People’s Organisation)
and their former opponents in South Africa’s elite koevert force. The fearsome
reputation of the latter in particular may partly explain the unit’s success.

In contrast to neighbouring Zimbabwe, fire fights between poachers and
the unit are rare – the majority surrender on sight. But Etosha’s chief
warden, Allan Cilliers, gives much of the credit to the ‘hearts and minds’
work which the unit carries on in the villages of Ovamboland near the park’s
perimeter. ‘They go into the villages and talk to the headmen, building
up relationships with them. This way they can warn people, not only of the
penalties for poaching, but also of the fact that less wildlife means less
tourism in the area, and less income for the locals. ‘It’s about showing
people that they have a long-term investment in rhinos and other game, which
will earn them much more than the few hundred rands they get from poaching.’
This concept is also being developed to good effect in the Kaokoveld and
northern Damaraland, where a system of ‘community game guards’ has been
set up, again with WWF backing, after talks between local development workers
and leaders of the local peoples, the Damara, Herero and Himba. In return
for a small monthly stipend, the guards keep an eye on the rhinos and other
wildlife in their home area and report any suspected poachings. For the
most part, local villagers seem pleased to cooperate with the scheme. Many
identify a thriving population of game with times of plenty, ‘It’s God’s
farming,’ said one local chief. ‘If the wild animals go, it means times
are hard.’

This ecologically sound whimsy is fleshed out with a new government
scheme in which meat from carefully controlled culls of game such as giraffe,
wildebeest and buck is given to the local community in return for its cooperation
with stamping out poaching.

Development workers with the Himba people have won the cooperation of
safari operators to charge a small levy on each tourist coming into the
area. The money is shared among Himba villagers and helps to fund craft
marketing.

‘We used to get food and money from shooting animals,’ said one old
man, ‘and now we get it from people coming to look at them. It’s better
that way.’ With their numbers having almost doubled over the last eight
years, the rhinos probably think so too.

Martin Wright