The Rhino poaching crisis continues to plague South Africa, with more than 1050 Rhino already poached during 2014! KwaZulu-Natal is home to the second largest wild Rhino population left in Africa after the Kruger National Park (KNP). Over 3 000 White Rhino are found in northern KZN alone, spread out across a large number of provincial government, private and community owned game reserves. Because of this, no single, overall security plan can be implemented to protect every Rhino, but as the KNP intensifies its anti-poaching efforts, KZN is being increasingly targeted by poaching syndicates from both Mozambique and within SA’s borders.
It was therefore necessary to implement anti-poaching initiatives that can support both government and private/community game reserves to counter rhino poaching. The Zululand Anti-Poaching Wing (ZAP-Wing) is a good example of a region-wide anti-poaching intervention that benefits a large Rhino population spread over 300 000ha of government, private and community-owned reserves. It is also the first integrated Public-Private Partnership in South Africa to combat wildlife crime from the air: Ezemvelo KZN Wildlife, 17 private game reserves and leading KZN-based conservation NGOs have joined forces to implement this intervention, which has been operational for the past 2 years. The conservation NGO sector continue to throw their full weight behind these initiatives. The Wildlands Conservation Trust and WWF-SA recently donated a much-needed vehicle to the coordinators and pilots of the ZAP-Wing programme, allowing a more efficient management of the programme. It is through collective action that we will win this battle against Rhino poaching.