http://www.sundayworld.co.za/n...nline-global-auction


500kg of rhino horn up for grabs as South African breeder hosts first ever online global auction

JUN 24, 2017 | TONY CARNIE |

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.



Billed as the world’s first “legal rhino horn auction”‚ the three-day sale is scheduled for midday on August 21.

South African 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 – along with other private rhino breeders — has been removing horns from his herd for several years. The animals are anaesthetised and the top section of the horn removed so that they can regrow naturally as part of a “bloodless‚ horn-harvesting” operation.

In an attempt to halt the unrelenting slaughter of rhinos in Africa and Asia by poaching syndicates‚ a ban on the international sale of rhino horns came into force in 1977 by member states of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES). This was followed by a 2009 ban on the sale of rhino horns within South Africa that coincided with an unprecedented spike in horn poaching.

Now that Hume has overturned the moratorium on domestic sales within South Africa‚ he 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 South Africa until global trade is unbanned — or alternatively‚ until foreign buyers are granted import and export permits from South Africa and their home nations.

Senior officials of the Department of Environmental Affairs and South Africa’s Private Rhino Owners Association (PROA) held a meeting in Pretoria early on Friday to wrangle over the terms of the proposed auction. It is understood that the department raised a number of concerns over import and export permit procedures‚ but Hume told TimesLIVE that the auction was going ahead regardless.

“The (auction) dates are fixed” he said on Friday.

In a social media campaign notice‚ it was announced that the auction would start on August 21‚ with anonymous bids continuing until noon on August 24.

This was confirmed by the appointed Pretoria-based auction house. Van’s Auctioneers spokesman Johan van Eyk said Hume would offer just over 500 kg of rhino horns for sale. The horns would be split into 250 separate lots‚ mainly sets of front and back horns and some larger individual front horns.

A second‚ conventional auction would be held amid tight security in Gauteng on September 19.

Van Eyk said he was not willing to speculate on expected prices‚ but noted that current domestic black-market prices were considerably lower than end-of-market prices in the Far East.

Jo Shaw‚ rhino programme manager for the Worldwide Fund for Nature (WWF) in South Africa‚ 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 South Africa and the access to international markets is illegal – so why would buyers want to bid for horns at this auction?”

A spokesman for environmental affairs Minister Edna Molewa did not respond to written queries on Friday night‚ while the CITES secretariat in Switzerland claimed it was not aware of the proposed auction.

Instead‚ CITES spokesman Yuan Liu pointed to a statement issued earlier this year after South Africa published draft proposals that would allow foreign nationals to export two rhino horns from South Africa for “personal purposes”.

This statement notes that – with the exception of legal hunting trophies – no rhino horns can be traded internationally “if the use is for primarily commercial purposes”.

“The Secretariat has received questions from CITES parties and journalists‚ as well as messages of concern from the general public‚ regarding measures proposed by the Republic of South Africa relating to the domestic trade and the export for personal purposes of rhinoceros horn…The application of relevant CITES provisions to South Africa’s proposal is rather complex.”

But private rhino owners – who now own 37% of South Africa’s increasingly threatened rhino population – are hoping that buyers from London‚ Tokyo‚ Beijing‚ New York and other major centres will still bid for a slice of the massive stockpile of rhino horns that has been building up for forty years in private and state storage facilities in South Africa.

PROA spokesman Pelham Jones described the latest move as the first move of a “two-step dance”.

“Why buy it illegally‚ when you can buy it legally? There is no intention nor desire to flood the market. After the first horn auctions are held we will be able to see how much interest there is. There is no legal bar to holding an auction‚” he argued‚ noting that rhino owners had studied the relevant legislation very closely.

“We see a lot of nonsense on social media suggesting that this would enable ‘blood horns’ to be laundered and sold off. It’s nonsense because you have to be in possession of a permit in order to sell horns. Poaching will continue unless there is a regulated supply of horn available to meet demand‚” he said.

By all means sell it, Flood the market. Make the going price for Rhino horn so cheap that it will dry up the Black Market.

Same with Ivory, instead of burning it sell it on the open market.

As long as either are viewed as a Rare/Precious commodity, poachers will continue their work.

Find a manner to make either readily available and cheap and it will change the equation. JMO

quote:

By all means sell it, Flood the market. Make the going price for Rhino horn so cheap that it will dry up the Black Market.

Same with Ivory, instead of burning it sell it on the open market.

As long as either are viewed as a Rare/Precious commodity, poachers will continue their work.

Find a manner to make either readily available and cheap and it will change the equation. JMO

+1

quote:

Originally posted by Crazyhorseconsulting:
By all means sell it, Flood the market. Make the going price for Rhino horn so cheap that it will dry up the Black Market.

Same with Ivory, instead of burning it sell it on the open market.

As long as either are viewed as a Rare/Precious commodity, poachers will continue their work.

Find a manner to make either readily available and cheap and it will change the equation. JMO

+2

Same with bear gall bladders, paws ect if all the legally taken bears were allowed to be sold. the market would crash.


The idea of not allowing sales of legally take animal parts just keeps price way up.

With DNA testing one could make sure only legal parts would be sold.

quote:

Originally posted by p dog shooter:

quote:

Originally posted by Crazyhorseconsulting:
By all means sell it, Flood the market. Make the going price for Rhino horn so cheap that it will dry up the Black Market.

Same with Ivory, instead of burning it sell it on the open market.

As long as either are viewed as a Rare/Precious commodity, poachers will continue their work.

Find a manner to make either readily available and cheap and it will change the equation. JMO

+2

Same with bear gall bladders, paws ect if all the legally taken bears were allowed to be sold. the market would crash.


The idea of not allowing sales of legally take animal parts just keeps price way up.

With DNA testing one could make sure only legal parts would be sold.

+3

quote:

Originally posted by Crazyhorseconsulting:
By all means sell it, Flood the market. Make the going price for Rhino horn so cheap that it will dry up the Black Market.

Same with Ivory, instead of burning it sell it on the open market.

As long as either are viewed as a Rare/Precious commodity, poachers will continue their work.

Find a manner to make either readily available and cheap and it will change the equation. JMO

This would be the logic behind such a move but the "experts" claim the opposite.

There are stockpiles of ivory waiting for such an occasion but their public auction has been denied and given the public listing by CITES on ivory, most of the Western buyers would not be able to purchase it anyway.

I would certainly agree to put it to the test and see which way the results will sway and either confirm or reject either theory.

Burning ivory is just plain SICK!

The only purpose it serves is to satisfy the imotions of the snow flakes who are obsessedwith their own self importance to dictate to us what should be done!

common sense seems to be a thing of the past.

Dave

love the idea of flooding the market but in all probability one rich dude will but the whole thing and control the market price

There are ways to get around that, all it takes is a little planning and organization.

Or we can keep on going the way things are, and the point will be reached where sport hunting for either Elephant or Rhino will be stopped, and poaching will continue and both species will go extinct, then there will not be a problem.

I mean, poachers are killing rhinos in zoos, so why bother trying anything, just let nature take its course.

You'll never "flood the market". It's just too big. But let the nay-sayers foot the bill for the protection and security of the rhinos.

The objective is not to flood the market and drive down prices, somehow the press keeps getting this wrong.

The objective is to give LIVE rhino value, and a chance for owners (both private and state parks) a chance to earn income that can go towards funding the enormous cost of security.

There is evidence that the price for horn is inflated because of cartels buying horn to stockpile, banking on a continued reduction in supply. Legal sales would put an end to such speculation, and the prices would stablise around a true market value (which would still be high, and maintained so by the legal sellers).

Whether the market could be flooded or not, burning rhino horns/elephant ivory however is not accomplishing anything, except probably keeping prices and demand high.