Wildlife in crisis

30,000 species per year – 3 per hour – are being driven to extinction*.

Wildlife poaching is at a crisis point, worsened by the COVID-19 pandemic.

Reduced tourism numbers in wildlife areas has seen a surge of poaching for a number of reasons. Parks and game reserves that are normally filled with visiting researchers and tourists are now empty. Border closures and restrictions on international travel means without visitor revenue, parks, private reserves and community conservancies cannot fend off poachers. With rising unemployment, local communities are turning to wildlife for food, which is also leading to a rise in bushmeat poaching.

There’s an urgency like never before to act, to protect critical wildlife populations and help rebuild local livelihoods.

*Center for Biological Diversity, Human population growth and extinction, Date viewed: 6 July 2020, https://www.biologicaldiversity.org/programs/population_and_sustainability/extinction/index.html#:~:text=Harvard%20biologist%20E.%20O.,crisis%20unparalleled%20in%20human%20history.

Illegal Wildlife Trade

2 rhinos a day are lost to poaching

Over 1,000 park rangers have been killed in the line of duty over the last decade

African elephant populations are declining by 8% per annum

There are more than 120,000 species on The IUCN Red List, with more than 32,000 species threatened with extinction. About 96% of the world’s rhino population has been killed by humans.

Illegal wildlife trafficking is the fourth most lucrative illegal industry*, behind the trafficking of drugs, humans, and firearms. The illegal wildlife trade is driving species such as Rhino into extinction and severely impacting other vulnerable species such as the African elephant, pangolin, orangutans and tigers. Rhino horn is the most expensive commodity on the black market, ahead of cocaine, gold and platinum. The value currently is around USD 80-90,000 per kilogram and a rhino horn can weigh up to 11 kilograms.

Rhino populations around the world are in crisis due to poaching. According to the South African Department of Environmental Affairs Report 2020, there were 769 rhinos poached in 2018, and 594 rhinos poached in 2019. Although, there is a decline in poaching in South Africa, a decline is statistically insignificant in light of such large numbers of poaching deaths. Statistics today are only compiled from four African countries and one Asian country that keep records - South Africa, Kenya, Mozambique, Namibia, and India.

If poaching continues at its current rate where rhino deaths are overtaking births, rhinos could be extinct by 2025.

*Kate Good, 2014, 10 Shocking Facts About How the Illegal Wildlife Trade Drives Species Extinction, CITES/ One Green Planet, https://www.onegreenplanet.org/environment/shocking-facts-about-how-the-illegal-wildlife-trade-drives-species-extinction/