SAIIA Submission to Committee of Inquiry to deliberate on matters relating to a possible trade of Rhino Horn

The document evaluates the proposal to legalise the trade of rhino horn in South Africa to combat poaching. While proponents argue that a regulated trade could meet inelastic demand and fund conservation, the author identifies significant risks, including the potential for illegal supply laundering, the risk of reawakening demand in markets like Taiwan and Japan, and the incompatibility of legalisation with demand-reduction strategies. The submission suggests that the CITES ban's failure may be partly due to a legal aberration allowing trade in products of extinct species, which should be addressed.

• Rhino poaching in South Africa has doubled annually on average over the last five years, creating a risk that Africa's wild rhino populations could face extinction within 20 years.
• Proponents of a legal trade argue that the 1977 CITES ban has failed and that a regulated system based on harvesting horn from live white rhinos is the only workable solution, noting that 5,000 white rhinos on private land in South Africa could potentially meet estimated demand.
• The document identifies four critical conditions for a legal trade to succeed: the ability to prevent the laundering of illegal horn, the ability of legal supply to outperform syndicates in efficiency, ensuring that the reduction of stigma does not further escalate demand, and confirming that legal horns are acceptable substitutes for poached ones.
• Legalising the trade carries the risk of re-stimulating demand in older markets, specifically Taiwan, Japan, Singapore, and Yemen, and may be undermined by the fact that farmed rhinos may not breed at the same rate as wild populations.
• The author argues that trade legalisation and demand reduction are mutually incompatible strategies and suggests that changing CITES regulations to ban trade in products of extinct species is a more immediate and viable priority.

APA

South African Institute of International Affairs (n.d.). SAIIA Submission to Committee of Inquiry to deliberate on matters relating to a possible trade of Rhino Horn. https://saiia.org.za/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/SAIIA-Submission-to-Committee-of-Inquiry-deliberating-trade-of-Rhino-Horn.pdf

Chicago

South African Institute of International Affairs. SAIIA Submission to Committee of Inquiry to deliberate on matters relating to a possible trade of Rhino Horn. n.d. https://saiia.org.za/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/SAIIA-Submission-to-Committee-of-Inquiry-deliberating-trade-of-Rhino-Horn.pdf.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |author=South African Institute of International Affairs |title=SAIIA Submission to Committee of Inquiry to deliberate on matters relating to a possible trade of Rhino Horn |url=https://saiia.org.za/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/SAIIA-Submission-to-Committee-of-Inquiry-deliberating-trade-of-Rhino-Horn.pdf |access-date=17 August 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{southafricaninstituteofinternationalaffairsndsaiia, author = {{South African Institute of International Affairs}}, title = {{SAIIA Submission to Committee of Inquiry to deliberate on matters relating to a possible trade of Rhino Horn}}, institution = {South African Institute of International Affairs}, url = {https://saiia.org.za/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/SAIIA-Submission-to-Committee-of-Inquiry-deliberating-trade-of-Rhino-Horn.pdf}, urldate = {2026-08-17}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }