Planned online rhino horn auction raises concerns

As authorities continue to battle poachers seeking to steal and trade rhino horn, a rhino farmer has announced his intention to sell part of his massive stockpile of this valuable, yet illegal, commodity, writes Legalbrief. The world’s biggest rhino breeder has announced plans to sell part of his massive stockpile of horns in a global online auction‚ sparking concern that this could undermine the 40-year-old international ban on rhino horn trading. According to a BusinessLIVE report, billed as the world’s first ‘legal rhino horn auction’‚ the three-day sale is scheduled to start at midday on 21 August. SA businessman and game rancher John Hume‚ who has nearly 1 500 rhinos at his game farm in the North West‚ has a stockpile of nearly six tons of horns that he wants to sell. This after he won a series of court battles earlier this year to overturn the eight-year-old moratorium on the domestic sale of rhino horns. Hume plans to sell 500kg of horns in an online auction that will be open to bidders from China‚ Vietnam and other nations. A condition of sale is that the horns will have to remain in SA until global trade is unbanned – or alternatively‚ until foreign buyers are granted import and export permits from SA and their home nations. Jo Shaw‚ rhino programme manager for the Worldwide Fund for Nature (WWF) in SA‚ has questioned why buyers would want to bid for rhino horn when the international trade remains illegal. ‘There is no significant demand for rhino horns inside SA and the access to international markets is illegal – so why would buyers want to bid for horns at this auction?’ she asked. However, the CITES secretariat in Switzerland claimed it was not aware of the proposed auction.