The proposed regulations have come as a shock to the local and international community particularly given the fact that the Committee of Inquiry set up by the South African Government advised against commercial trading of rhino horns and, at the 2016 CITES COP the MAJORITY of world governments firmly opposed legalising international trade in rhino horn. 

The proposed regulations establish a system for permits to be issued for a person to “sell or otherwise trade in, give, donate, buy, receive, accept as a gift or donate, or in any way dispose of or acquire, a rhinoceros horn”. While this system appears to be targeting so-called ‘domestic’ trade in rhino horn within the borders of South Africa, it is highly likely that such legal trade will be exploited to smuggle rhino horn to the key Asian markets where consumers are willing to pay top dollar for it. 

In addition, the proposed regulations also establish a permitting process for the export of rhino horn for “personal purposes” – this term has not been defined, making it easy for criminal syndicates to exploit such a massive loophole. Further, the regulations also specify that a foreigner who “owns a rhinoceros” in South Africa can “export the horn of such rhinoceros of which he or she is the owner”. 

According to the proposed regulations, rhino horn can now also be sold by auction to the highest bidder, emphasising the commercial value of rhino horn rather than encouraging the public to value live rhinos in the wild. 

Overall, the regulations establish a complicated and confusing regulatory mechanism with layers of bureaucracy and paperwork again raising concerns as to how criminal syndicates may exploit this system, particularly given the lack of resources among provincial authorities to enforce current wildlife laws and rampant corruption entrenched in the existing institutional framework. 

While the regulations envisage reciprocal permits being issued by countries of import, this could prove to be a slippery slope because main demand countries for rhino horn – Vietnam and China – currently prohibit trade in rhino horn. If South Africa is intending to encourage these massive wildlife destinations to open up trade in rhino horn, this would have serious ramifications for the survival of the last remaining wild rhinos in Africa and Asia.

The EMS Foundation and Ban Animal Trading are concerned that the regulations proposed by South Africa undermine the CITES international trade prohibitions which protect rhino populations globally. A legal domestic trade in rhino horn provides an avenue for laundering illegal rhino horn, thereby increasing the burden of law enforcement authorities responsible for combatting rhino horn trafficking. 

Further, the proposed regulations also seriously undermine campaigns to reduce demand for rhino horn and instead legitimise its consumption as a commodity. 

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