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White rhinoceros population increasing12/7/2023 ![]() ![]() "It is important that future policy enables new incentives that compensate for rising security costs, encouraging rhino conservation on private and communal land," explains senior author Prof. But these rising security costs mean many landowners are not willing or able to continue conserving rhinos, with some choosing to sell their rhinos, often at a loss." ![]() Combined with the generally smaller size of private rhino populations (averaging 100 km 2), which likely makes them easier to protect than in places like Kruger (20,000 km 2), this spending on security means private rhino populations have suffered lower poaching rates than in some core state-run parks. This is far more than state parks are able to spend per rhino or per unit area conserved. "Accelerating poaching has meant private rhino owners now spend on average US$150,000 per year on security measures. "The result has been that hundreds of landowners conserve rhinos on their properties."īut the cost-benefit ratio of conserving rhinos is changing, explains study co-author Dr Dave Balfour. "Private and communal landowners in several southern and East African countries can generate revenues from wildlife tourism, trophy hunting and trade in live animals, making it financially viable to use their land to conserve wildlife rather than for farming livestock" explains paper author Dr Hayley Clements. They consider the implications of an emerging shift in rhino conservation from state to private and communal lands, and chart a new path for rhino conservation. In a new article published in Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment, scientists from the University of Helsinki in Finland and the Universities of Stellenbosch and Nelson Mandela in South Africa have compiled publicly available rhino population data for African countries where rhinos occur, disaggregated by state, private, and communal land types where possible. Private rhino owners now conserve at least half of the continents' remaining rhinos, and communal lands conserve a growing proportion as well. By contrast, the number of white rhinos on private land has steadily increased over the same decade, particularly in South Africa. This state-run park has, however, lost 76% and 68% of its white and black rhinos over the past decade, respectively. Until the past decade, the largest population of rhinos was found in South Africa's Kruger National Park. ![]()
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