DOLLAR BOON: R10m windfall for African conservation after Australian ‘rhino rescue’ plan folds up

Nearly R10-million – money that was raised to transfer and multiply a founder population of at least 200 African rhinos in Australia – is coming to Africa to support seven rhino protection projects in South Africa, Zimbabwe and Namibia.

With endorsements from the late South African rhino conservation icon Dr Ian Player and former Wallabies rugby captain George Gregan, at least A$840,000 was raised to support a project to breed and multiply African rhinos in Australia.

Known as The Australian Rhino Project (TARP), it was initiated jointly by South African-born entrepreneur Ray Dearlove and Australian mining executive Allan Davies in 2013.

That was the year that the South African rhino poaching crisis reached its peak, with more than 1,000 butchered by illegal horn poachers in a single year. The following year, another 1,215 were slaughtered and the death toll remained above 1,000  annually until 2017 before gradually tailing off as the rhino population continued to plummet and stricter security measures were implemented.

As the crisis mounted, Dearlove and Davies mounted a fundraising project aiming to seek South African government permission to transfer up to 200 white and black rhinos to breed and multiply in northern Queensland.

The ambition of the project was later scaled back, aiming to import about 80 animals to a rhino breeding area at the Taronga Western Plains Zoo (about a five-hour drive northwest of Sydney) or possibly the Monarto Zoo in South Australia or Orana Wildlife Park in New Zealand.

But now the project is being wound up, with pledges made this week to “redirect donor contributions directly to projects capable of delivering immediate, measurable outcomes for rhino survival”.

According to an announcement on the project website: “The landscape for rhino conservation has changed. South Africa’s proposed restrictions on rhino exports outside of African range states and ongoing policy uncertainty mean that continuing with our original mission is no longer viable in the foreseeable future.”

In a press statement on 26 August, TARP chair Davies said that following a recent Request for Proposal process, it was now committing A$840,000 (R9.6-million) to seven organisations working to protect rhinos in South Africa, Namibia and Zimbabwe.

Davies said the process attracted requests from more than 50 conservation organisations and seven successful projects had been chosen as beneficiaries for their work in anti-poaching, monitoring technology, orphan care, translocation or community-led conservation.

The seven organisation are:

• Endangered Rhino Conservation (South Africa) which would receive A$100,000 for the urgent relocation of 12 southern white rhinos from a structurally insecure reserve to a secure property within the Waterberg Biosphere;

• Food for Rhinos NPC (South Africa): A$250,000 to sustain operations at a Waterberg District facility caring for displaced, injured and orphaned rhinos, which had produced 46 calves since 2015;

• KZN Rhino Project (South Africa): A$90,000 for coordination, K9 anti-poaching teams, aerial surveillance and conservation education across 42 KwaZulu-Natal game reserves;

• Legend Rhino Orphanage NPC (South Africa): A$115,000 for LoRaWAN monitoring towers, GPS collars for 35 rhinos and a security control room upgrade across 12,000 hectares of mountainous Limpopo terrain;

• Rooiberg Veterinary Services (South Africa): A$100,000 to complete a real-time GPS telemetry and LoRa monitoring network achieving full coverage of 54 white rhinos in the Rooiberg-Waterberg landscape;

• Global Wildlife Fund (Zimbabwe): A$100,000 in support of the reintroduction of black rhinos to Matusadona National Park, delivered in partnership with African Parks; and

• Save the Rhino Trust Namibia: A$85,000 for community-led black rhino conservation across 14 communal conservancies covering more than 25,000km².

Each project beneficiary was required to demonstrate how funds would translate into rhinos protected on the ground.

“When we made the decision to change course, we made a promise to our supporters that their donations would keep working for rhinos,” Davies said.

“These donations to seven important organisations deliver on that commitment. They are doing the hard, unglamorous work of keeping animals alive and they are doing it now, not at some point in the future. We are proud to stand behind them.”

The funds would be released to recipients this week “under executed donation deeds, with programmes running between three and 12 months”.

“TARP has put in place a strict monitoring and compliance regime to ensure these funds are spent appropriately. Once the funds have been spent and activity completed in accordance with contracts signed with the seven organisations, TARP will wind up its own operations.”

Last year, the rhino poaching death toll in South Africa was 352. DM