Donna Bryson, Associated Press Google News 28 Sep 11;
JOHANNESBURG (AP) — More needs to be done to dispel the myth among the Vietnamese that rhinoceros horn can cure cancer, Vietnamese officials said Wednesday after meeting with their South African counterparts about curbing rhino poaching.
This year already, 309 rhinos have been poached in South Africa, compared to the 2010 record of 333, according to the Department of Environmental Affairs. The 2010 figure was nearly triple the deaths in 2009.
Demand for rhino horn among a growing Vietnamese middle class is believed to be driving the poaching spike in South Africa and elsewhere in Africa — Vietnam's own rhinos are nearly extinct. David Newton of TRAFFIC, the wildlife trade monitoring network of the World Wildlife Fund and the International Union for the Conservation of Nature, said demand in China and Thailand also was a concern, but that recently, the "vast majority" of rhino horn smuggling prosecutions involved Vietnamese citizens.
"We need to raise public awareness of the importance of biodiversity and we need to get rid of the wrong understanding that rhino horn can cure cancer," said Kien Nguyen, a Vietnamese diplomat who took part in two days of talks with South African diplomats, conservationists and law enforcement and prosecuting authorities.
Tuan Cong Ha, a Vietnamese environmental affairs official who headed his country's delegation in South Africa, called on medical researchers in his country to study what he called the cancer-cure "rumor" and make their findings public. He also said attempts to educate Vietnamese should be more specific, saying previous campaigns have spoken only generally of the need to protect wildlife.
Newton said rhino horn has been used traditionally in Asia to treat fever. He said the focus on cancer was new, and that Wednesday's comments from Vietnamese officials showed they were aware of a growing problem.
The Vietnamese and South African officials said a key focus of their talks was the need to ensure that Vietnamese who come to South Africa as trophy hunters do not return and sell rhino horn on the black market. It is legal to keep rhino horn as a souvenir, but not to trade in it. Such illegal trade can lead to up to seven years in prison in Vietnam, Nguyen said.
The Vietnamese officials in South Africa on Wednesday could not provide figures for arrests and prosecutions in Vietnam.
Newton, of TRAFFIC, said Vietnam needed to be more open about the problem and what was being done to combat it.
"They're increasingly paying attention to it, but there's obviously a very long way for them to go," he said in an interview.
Fundisile Mketeni, who led the South African delegation in talks with the Vietnamese, said South Africa would schedule similar meetings with Chinese and Thai officials.
"All those countries have a role to play," Newton said. "It's absolutely urgent that South Africa does get those countries involved."
South Africa, Vietnam launch talks on rhino poaching
(AFP) Google News 28 Sep 11;
JOHANNESBURG — South Africa and Vietnam have launched talks toward an agreement to curb rhino poaching, which has soared in recent years driven by booming demand in Asia, officials said on Wednesday.
The talks, which aim to produce a Memorandum of Understanding between the two countries, come amid another bloody year for rhinos in South Africa and a rise in the price of rhino horn on the Asian black market, including Vietnam, where the substance is believed to cure cancer.
"Biodiversity conservation is a full-circle process which starts from the source country and ends in the destination country," Nguyen Trung Kien, a counsellor at the Vietnamese embassy in Pretoria, told journalists.
"We also understand that we need to raise public awareness of the importance of biodiversity. And we also need to get rid of the wrong understanding that rhino horn can cure cancer."
South Africa lost 333 rhinos to poaching last year and has lost 309 so far this year, up from 13 in 2007.
Police and parks officials say the increase has been driven by organised poaching syndicates.
The horns on the lucrative Asian black market fetch up to $500,000 per piece, according to the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species.
Officials from South Africa's environment ministry and Vietnam's forestry administration held two days of talks that the South Africans described as a "total package" bringing police, prosecutors and customs officers into the discussions.
Officials said the final document will be a wide-ranging agreement, including conservation, law enforcement, intelligence, prosecution and monitoring of legal hunts. They did not give a timeline for signing the deal.
South Africa and Viet Nam to co-operate on protection of wildlife
TRAFFIC 30 Sep 11;
Johannesburg, South Africa, 30th September 2011—South Africa and Viet Nam formally agreed on a process to sign a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to collaborate on natural resource management wildlife protection and law enforcement.
At a joint press conference on Wednesday, Mr. Fundisile Mketeni, Deputy Director General of Biodiversity and Conservation in the South African Department of Environmental Affairs, and Dr. Ha Cong Tuan, Deputy Director General, Viet Nam Forestry Administration, announced technical agreement on promoting co-operation between the two countries to enhance wildlife protection, law enforcement and compliance with CITES.
The announcement came following a bilateral meeting that was facilitated by TRAFFIC to discuss the issue of rhino poaching and illegal trade in rhino horn between the two countries.
Viet Nam has been identified as the primary destination for rhino horns illegally coming from South Africa, where government officials announced that the death toll had reached 309 poached animals since the beginning of the year.
The MoU now moves into the final round of vetting before being signed in the near future.
The two countries have agreed to co-operate through information and intelligence sharing, the future introduction of a rigorous permit verification procedure, technology development and exchange, joint research and capacity building and training.
“We are now on the cusp of proactive law enforcement collaboration that harnesses the political will of both nations to actively combat the illegal trade in rhino horns. This can only be good news for Africa’s beleaguered rhinos and hopefully leads to a new era of diminishing rhino losses” said Tom Milliken, head of TRAFFIC’s Elephant and Rhino Programme.
Whilst the rhino crisis dominated the current round of discussions, the future MoU will broadly include other natural resource management, protected areas management, community development and sustainable livelihoods as they relate to biodiversity management.
“Today we are concerned about rhinos, but tomorrow our concerns may expand to elephants or reptiles or something else”, said Mr Fundisile Mketani. “We will now be prepared”.
Dr Ha Cong Tuan strongly signaled Viet Nam’s intention to co-operate with South Africa to address outstanding wildlife trade problems.
