skip to Main Content

Importance of private and communal lands to sustainable conservation of Africa’s rhinoceroses

Kruger National Park (KNP) and Hulhulwe Imfolosi have been at the forefront of boosting rhino population numbers for the last 100 years. Rhino populations were decimated across the whole of Southern Africa in the last poaching crisis at the start of the 19th century. With history once again repeating itself, state-run KNP released figures in 2021 signalling 76% and 68% declines in the white rhino and black rhino populations over the past decade, respectively. Over the same decade, the estimated number of white rhinos on private land in South Africa has steadily increased. As a result of these divergent rhino population trends on state and private lands, the proportion of the country’s white rhinos on private land increased from 25% in 2010 to 53% in 2021. This means that, collectively, private landholders in South Africa now support the largest number of white rhinos on the continent. A lower but still substantial proportion (~25% over the past decade) of South Africa’s black rhinos are conserved on privately held lands. (HS Clements et al.) –https://esajournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1002/fee.2593

This Post Has 0 Comments

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Back To Top