UNEP assist in anti-rhino poaching efforts
The United Nations Environment Programme’s Global Environment Facility (UNEP-GEF) has donated four 4×4 forensic trailers to South African National Parks (SANParks) to assist in anti-poaching efforts.
The trailers were handed over on Tuesday by minister of environmental affairs Edna Molewa to retired army Major-General Johan Jooste of the Kruger National Park’s (KNP) anti-poaching unit,Lowvelder reported.
“This mobile unit will make the postmortems after poaching easier for the forensic team. To work on such a scene is very traumatic, and this will just make it easier. This unit has everything they need,” Jooste said.
The park’s general manager for communications and marketing, William Mabasa, said the trailers would also simplify crime-scene management and the on-scene forensic investigations.
He added KNP had also enforced stricter movement control in the park. Three boom gates have been installed on access roads north of the Sabie River, designating the area as an intensive protection zone.
The boom gates will control night movement in order to minimise risk factors. These posts will be manned by rangers.
“We are continuously taking steps to increase security in the park in our quest to continue to provide security for our rhino, which is severely under attack by poachers,” Mabasa added.
In May, Molewa announced more rhino were poached in South Africa during the first four months of 2015 than in the same period last year.
She said a total of 393 rhino had been poached in South Africa between the beginning of the year and the end of April. Of the 393 rhino, 290 were poached in KNP.
– Caxton News Service
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