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

This briefing by the South African Institute of International Affairs (SAIIA) provides an analysis for policymakers regarding the potential legalisation of rhino horn trade for the 17th CITES meeting in 2016. It evaluates arguments in favour of regulated trade against the practical conditions required for such a system to succeed, ultimately questioning whether legal trade would effectively prevent rhino extinction or inadvertently increase demand and poaching.

• Rhino poaching in South Africa has increased at an average rate of double each year over the previous five years. If this acceleration continues, the remaining rhino populations in Africa could face extinction in the wild within 20 years.
• Proponents of a regulated legal trade argue that the 1977 CITES ban has failed and that high black market prices—approximately $65,000 per kilogram—drive unprecedented poaching. They suggest that the demand could be met by 5,000 white rhinos on private conservation land in South Africa, as horn is renewable and grows at 0.9kg per year.
• The document identifies four critical conditions for a regulated trade to succeed: the ability to limit the laundering of illegal supply, the ability of legal supply to be more efficient than syndicates, the prevention of increased demand due to reduced stigma, and the ability of legal horns to substitute for poached ones.
• The author argues that legalising trade may reawaken demand in markets such as Japan, Singapore, Taiwan, and Yemen. Furthermore, there is a lack of evidence that farmed rhinos breed at the same rate as wild ones, and South Africa's white rhino population is limited by a very small gene pool.
• The briefing suggests that a legal aberration in CITES, which allows trade in products of extinct species, creates a perverse incentive for syndicates to poach living stock to build stockpiles for a future, more lucrative market.

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} }