ENVIRONMENT-SWAZILAND: Landmark Anti-Poaching Law Put to Test

By James Hall Reprint | | Print |

James Hall

MBABANE, Feb 21 2002 (IPS) - One of the world’s toughest anti-poaching acts has been on the law books of Swaziland for eight years.

Under the law’s provisions, remarkable strides have been achieved in animal conservation. But criminals eyeing the lucrative illegal market for animal parts, particularly rhino horn, are offering a counter offensive this month at the High Court of Swaziland.

Chief Justice Stanley Sapire is hearing the case of a white hotel operator and five Swazi associates who were found red-handed in the possession of two rhino horns.

Last May, rangers from the Big Game Parks of Swaziland broke up a ring transporting poached animal parts, when they recovered the two rhino horns.

The sting operation was mounted by personnel from Mlilwane, Swaziland’s oldest game park, as well as Hlane Royal Game reserve, the largest park in the kingdom, and Mkhaya Nature Preserve, where the country’s rarest species are kept in a fortified sanctuary.

“It is believed at the time that the suspects represented the entire chain of transactions from the time the horn entered Swaziland to when it was about to go through to South Africa,” says a park official involved in the sting operation.

Ted Reilly, Chief Executive of Big Game Parks, who forty years ago turned his private farm, Mlilwane, into Swaziland’s first game park, testified at the Mbabane High Court at the accused poachers’ trial, “The poached rhino did not come from Swaziland. We believe they came from South Africa, either from Mphumalanga, or KwaZulu/Natal. The horns were brought in through Mozambique, but did not originate there because, sadly, there are no longer rhinos in Mozambique to poach.”

As recounted by the park officer, who led the sting operation, Swaziland’s game parks set up a network of informers in anticipation of a new round of animal poaching. Alert rangers caught wind of the poaching syndicate’s desire to sell some rhino horn.

The two horns, an anterior and posterior horn cut from a rare white rhino bull, look like unimpressive dung-coloured anthills as they sit on the court exhibit table. But with a combined weight of 10 kilos, they are worth at least R250 000 (21,683 U.S. dollars).

In an interview, Reilly said park rangers felt they had to take the lead in protecting the kingdom’s wildlife because of fears that poaching, which has been drastically reduced by the 1993 Game Act, may pick up.

“The sting operation was a proactive, rather than a reactive exercise,” said Reilly.

Reilly said the fact that the trafficking ring was using Swaziland as a transit point rather than a location to poach fresh animals is evidence that poachers fear capture in the kingdom.

Credit goes to the 1993 Game Act, which was put in place following ten years of virtual open warfare at Swaziland’s game parks, where poachers armed with AK-47s and other arms of war overwhelmed rangers carrying clubs or, at best, rifles.

Ninety percent of Swaziland’s rhino population was wiped out, with horns hacked off of still-living animals to meet a demand in the Middle East for prized rhino horn dagger handles and in the Far East for pulverised rhino horn, which is believed to be an aphrodisiac.

Rhino poaching in Swaziland has been reduced 100 percent since the enactment of the Game Act. The last rhinoceros to be killed in Swaziland was in Dec 1992, months before King Mswati, an avid conservationist, signed the act into law. Poaching of all kinds has decreased 80 percent.

“If all crime enforcement legislation was as effective as the Game Act, there would be no crime,” noted the Times of Swaziland. It reported that conservation experts from all over the globe have come to study the law with a view of making it a model for anti- poaching legislation in their own countries.

One of the provisions of the Game Act deputises game rangers, giving them police powers to apprehend and, if not arrest than at least to detain suspects until police officers arrive. Given the right to carry firearms, rangers can pursue culprits outside the boundaries of game parks. No one, poacher or otherwise, has been shot by a ranger. The act is such an effective deterrent that law enforcement officials feel it enforces itself.

Police spokesperson, Assistant Superintendent Vusi Masuku says, “Poachers are put off by stiff penalties such as prison time up to 15 years without option of a fine. A convicted poacher also has to pay for a replacement for the dead animal, which can be very expensive.”

To conservationists, the Game Act merely levelled the playing field, and was a necessary acknowledgement of the rangers’ bravery as they protected valued national assets, safeguarding also the tourism industry.

In the wake of the Game Act, tourism has assumed an ever- growing role in the economy. Wilderness areas and nature preserves were once no-go areas. Made unsafe by marauding poachers, some of Swaziland’s most beautiful areas were infested by other criminals who moved in to rob tourists and terrorise locals.

Since the Game Act, overall criminal activity has decreased, up to 90 percent in areas like Mantenga Falls, which in 1998 saw the opening of Swaziland’s top tourist attraction, Mantenga Cultural Village, a faithful recreation of a traditional Swazi multigenerational homestead.

At the High Court Poaching trial, defence attorneys were convinced that they have found a loophole in the Anti-Poaching Act. Announcing their confidence in the press, they raised alarm in the conservation community.

“We fear a return to the days of poaching as all-out warfare if ways can be found to get around the Game Act,” says Jabulani Ndwandwe, a game ranger at Mlilwane Park.

But a source at the office of the Director of Public Prosecutions says there is no reason to worry. “The defence strategy is to stay because it cannot be proved that the horns were acquired from Swazi rhino, the (people) accused have not broken any Swazi law. But the poaching act clearly stipulates that it is illegal to be found in the possession of any part of a listed species (animals on the protected species list).”

The World Wildlife Association and other conservation groups are monitoring the trial to see if the rangers’ sting operation will ensure the continued effectiveness of the Swaziland’s anti- poaching measures.