Dear Australian Parliamentary Committee,

Thank-you for allowing submissions on your terms of reference. I am just a simple concerned South African, who cares deeply about the inevitable extinction of our rhino, should we fail to try something different. Our current strategies of education, governance and policing, heavily armed security force protection of rhinos, and demand reduction, all of which, although great in principal and should certainly not be stopped, are simply not working fast enough. I have no great credentials other than a massive passion for this beautiful wild animal and for the people of to which they belong, but I hope you are willing to listen none-the-less.

My greatest concern, and I believe the biggest threat to our rhino, is the prevailing attitudes across the world with specific regard to the continued international ban on trade in rhino horn by CITES, which is supported by Australia and so many other countries, with little to no knowledge of the hard-core situation as it really is on the ground. This to me is sheer insanity, fuelled by the propaganda pedalled and funded by supposedly “green”, ”animal rights” organisations, as if their lives depended on it. Did I just say that? Oh yes, I did, because without this cause they certainly could not pull on the heart strings of an ill-informed public for the hundreds of millions of US dollars of donations they receive, that seldom reach real live rhinos on the ground (see https://www.scribd.com/document/255362337/A-Stampede-of-Hypocrisy)

So firstly we need to separate out the elephant issue from the rhino issue. The simple truth of the story is that whilst an elephant must die to give up its tusks, horn can be humanely and sustainably harvested off rhino, time and time again throughout its life. A horn is comprised of keratin, very similar to our hair and nails, whilst a tusk is more like our teeth. If we cut our hair and nails, they grow back, whilst if we lose a tooth, it is gone forever. The two issues are thus fundamentally different in nature, and so your findings with regards to the two require the respect of this recognition (although there are also great arguments for the legal trade of tusks, from which I will refrain for now).

So now to the issue of trade in rhino horn. Just like our hair and nails, rhino horn grows back at a rate of 10cm every year, yielding 1,5kg of horn from a male and 0.75kg from a female, every year for about 35-40 years of its adult life. South Africa currently has more than adequate stockpiles of horn to allow the start-up of, and then continued and sustainable legal supply of horn into the market, without having to kill a single rhino. So there is absolutely no reason for the current levels of to supply this evidently vigorous demand for horn.

For evidence of how trade supports growth of wildlife populations, I would draw your attention to South Africa, where sustainable use has been enshrined in our law for years. This example can be contrasted against both , and more recently Botswana, to understand the deleterious effects of removing all commercial value from an animal. Whilst South Africa has grown its wildlife heads from about 1,500,000 million heads to over 20,000,000 in a relatively short space of time (50 years or so), Kenya over a similar period has conversely lost 80% of its wildlife heads. Early reports out of Botswana are indicating that they are going the same way as Kenya. There are amazing examples from both Zimbabwe and Namibia as to how allowing ownership and sustainable use of wildlife has had extremely positive effects on the wildlife, the people and the ecology of those areas, not to mention the economic and poverty alleviation effects that result.

I will not go into all the issues, as there are many who are way more literate than I, and who express themselves way more elegantly. So I would hereby simply request that you diligently and responsibly conduct the investigation with which you have been tasked, and uncover the real facts behind the effects of trade bans on wildlife populations.

This is an African problem way more than it is ever an Australian one, and I would ask that you consider contacting some of the many organisations and individuals fighting to #CanTheBan on #TradeInRhinoHorn on this side of the before you make any pronouncements. I can get you started with links to a few great pieces of work done by African conservationists to this end.

This first video from The Conservation Initiative really encapsulates the essence of the issue. It is 1 hour long, but well worth the watch to get you started. https://vimeo.com/135540882

This next piece of work, commissioned by the South African Department of Environment, and headed up by the highly respected Mavusi Msimang, and completed after many months of detailed, in depth and wide spread consultation, encapsulates the final recommendation of the South African People. It was published in July 2013. https://www.environment.gov.za/sites/default/files/docs/rhinoissue_managementreport.pdf

The above RIM Report was subsequently followed by a second Committee of Inquiry, clearly due to resistance to the unpopular findings of the first. If read in full context, the second report resulted in very similar findings to the initial RIM Report, although they were never reported to the media this way. This report can be found here. https://www.environment.gov.za/sites/default/files/reports/summaryreport_committeeofinquiry.p df

And then there are some fantastic editorial pieces: https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/opinionista/2014-01-21-cherry-picking-grey-literature-on-rhino- horn/#.Ww-J9IqxWhB https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/opinionista/2015-03-30-rhino-horn-the-proposal-that-could-save- the-species/#.Ww-JwoqxWhD http://penguin.bookslive.co.za/blog/2015/04/23/save-the-rhino-by-legalising-rhino-horn-trade-ivo- vegter-weighs-up-the-pros-and-cons/

If you google Michael ‘t Sas-Rolfes, he has written a number of pieces over the past 20 years with regards to the economics behind trade bans. Economics is not an exact science, but it is certainly underpinned by some universal truths, and although it can never predict the future, there are certainly some basic rules which will realise in time. I read one of his articles written 20 years ago, where he made predictions as to what would happen in certain circumstances, and they realised! He runs a website at http://www.rhino-economics.com/about/ and some other samples of his work can be found at these locations: https://www.z2systems.com/neon/resource/perc/files/tsasPERC%20Wildlife%20Workshop%20MtR( 1).pdf http://www.rhino-economics.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/The-Rhino-Poaching-Crisis-by- Michael-t-Sas-Rolfes-Final.pdf

Another great writer on this topic is Ron Thomson from the True Green Alliance. He is on facebook and many of his pieces can be found at:

https://www.facebook.com/TheTrueGreenAlliance/ At risk of spamming you, I will leave it there. I trust the majority of your work will entail reading, meeting, understanding, talking to people on all sides of this terribly sad debate, as well as coming to see for yourselves some of the great work being done to save the rhino on the ground in South Africa. I wish you all the very best on your journey, and trust that once the issue is deeply understood, that sanity will prevail, and you stand up at COP 18, requesting a lifting of the ban on trade in rhino horn, in partnership with the entire block of Southern African governments.

All the very best

Regards

Lael Heasman