The following speech was delivered in Parliament today by DA Shadow Deputy Minister of the Environment, Ross Purdon MP, during the Budget Vote on Environment.
Chairperson
Section 24 of our Constitution is very clear. It states that everyone has the right to have the environment protected, for the benefit of present and future generations.
It is with this responsibility in mind that we wrestle with the urgency of saving and protecting our rhinos.
We are custodians of an iconic species with an enormous profile in the world and these assets are our responsibility to protect and save.
South Africa is home to approximately 80% of the world’s rhino population.
I approach this subject with great caution as there are many differing views on how we should be doing this.
As we speak, the country is faced with new legislation which has, and still is, being hotly contested both in and out of the courts.
I have spoken at length with environmental organisations, NGOs, veterinarians, private owners, game rangers and departmental officials and obviously there are many different opinions which we are not going to debate today.
However, there is one overriding common goal that everyone is in agreement with – we have to protect and save our rhinos.
There is also consensus that there is no silver bullet to the rhino issue. There are no easy answers.
One glaring issue that everyone has asked me to highlight is the fact that our law enforcement is failing in this crisis.
Many court cases go nowhere in South Africa.
Just last week, 3 men who are prime suspects in 99 rhino poaching cases dating back to 2009, were released by the Grahamstown High Court on R15 000 bail.
This has caused an outrage in the rhino community as it is feared that the suspects could re-ignite their network.
This follows a poaching drop while they were in jail. Sadly, we are living in a very corrupt society where documents get lost, people get bribed, permits are doctored and kingpins are not brought to book.
As long as our economy is struggling and unemployment figures are at an all-time high, there will never be a shortage of foot soldiers.
We have to, not only arrest and prosecute the foot soldiers, but also the middlemen and the kingpins.
Both the state and private owners – who are custodians of roughly a third of the national rhino population – are spending vast sums of money on security and our judicial system must not be allowed to cause these efforts to fail.
The legal process has to be intensified and the Minimum Sentences Act needs to be revisited with urgency.
To tackle rhino poaching effectively will require enormous political will. I want to emphasize, enormous political will.
This should involve greater urgency from the Minister together with Justice, crime prevention and security.
It certainly does not help the issue when an Al Jazeera documentary reported late last year on alleged links between the Minister of State Security, his wife, and a Chinese horn smuggler.
We, the DA, believe that the budget should have allocated more money to conservation.
At this time in our country-wide crisis, the Budget for Bio-diversity and Conservation has actually been cut and this is of major concern.
We need to be allocating more money into law enforcement and protection.
We also suggest that Government lobbies for foreign funding to help fund these efforts. I have been reliably informed that China has put money into conservation in both Kenya and Tanzania. If they are donating money for conservation, Honourable Minister, could you also not lobby them for a ban on rhino products in China?
Lastly, Let us not forget the importance of education. Education programmes need to be intensified both in South Africa and the East.
Chairperson, we certainly need a concerted effort from all South Africans to protect our rhinos. As well as the huge political effort that is required, I would like to appeal to the NGOs to co-ordinate their efforts.
All those affected and concerned need to rise above their differences and work towards this common goal.
We have to attack this on all fronts with new found urgency.
It is our duty.
We are also concerned that tourism could be affected and we can’t afford to lose tourists to other countries.
We must never forget that Tourism is one of the quickest job creators and we have to protect and grow this industry.
When the DA-led government comes into government in 2019, we will prioritise the environment to ensure that our children and their children’s children all enjoy the benefits of the environment.