Almost 15% of the rhinos in South Africa have been slaughtered since 2010, 1116 in 2014 alone, yet today the South African government are considering legalising the sale of rhino horn.
Legalising the trade in rhino horn will allow the South African government to sell 22 tons of rhino horn that it has in storage (roughly 25,000 dead rhinos) but that would not even dent demand in China and other Asian countries. Instead the illegal trade will boom because it will become easy for a criminal to pass off a poached rhino horn as legal.
Read the official Environmental Affairs document on the viability of legalising the trade in rhino horn here, and today, please email the South African Environmental Affairs Minister, and urge South Africa to say no to rhino horn sales:
