South Africa lifted the ban on the domestic rhino horn trade on Thursday, sending conservationists whirling in what is being referred to as the worst possible move for the current poaching crisis, according to Modern Ghana. The South African government has said it plans to appeal the South African Pretoria High Court Judge Francis Legodi's ruling, after two South African game breeders fought the legal battle to have the ban lifted.
"What disastrous implications would be brought about by the immediate lifting of the moratorium? I cannot think of any," Legodi said in his 39-page ruling.
South Africa's poaching epidemic continues to soar as a record 1,215 rhinos were killed in 2014 for their horns. South Africa has 80 percent of the world's rhinos, according to the BBC. Poaching numbers have skyrocketed in the last eight years. In 2007, 13 rhinos were killed. That number exploded 900 percent in 2014.
Private rhino breeders believe selling legally-harvested horns could suppress the black market trade, where rhinos are slaughtered by poachers for their horns, then traded in east Asia where they are used for traditional medicine.
"The pro-trade lobby will see it as quite a big win for themselves, but who are they going to sell it to? The South African market doesn't consume," said leading anti-trade lobbyist Dex Kotze.
"South Africa does not have a market for rhino horn domestically and the opening of trade locally will only lead to the smuggling of rhino horn by criminal syndicates into the black market in Vietnam and China," said Allison Thomson, founder of an anti-poaching group in South Africa, according to the Huffington Post. Thomson added that she is bitterly disappointed by the ruling.
