DOLLAR BOON: R10m windfall for African conservation after Australian ‘rhino rescue’ plan folds up

The Australian Rhino Project was set up at the height of the South African rhino poaching crisis 13 years ago. The aim was to move hundreds of rhinos to Australia to serve as an ‘insurance policy’ against the possible extinction of Africa’s rhino. Now it’s been called off.

Nearly R10-million – money that was raised to transfer and multiply a founder population of at least 200 African rhinos in Australia – is coming to Africa to support seven rhino protection projects in South Africa, Zimbabwe and Namibia.

With endorsements from the late South African rhino conservation icon Dr Ian Player and former Wallabies rugby captain George Gregan , at least A$840,000 was raised to support a project to breed and multiply African rhinos in Australia.

Known as The Australian Rhino Project (TARP), it was initiated jointly by South African-born entrepreneur Ray Dearlove and Australian mining executive Allan Davies in 2013.

That was the year that the South African rhino poaching crisis reached its peak, with more than 1,000 butchered by illegal horn poachers in a single year. The following year, another 1,215 were slaughtered and the death toll remained above 1,000 annually until 2017 before gradually tailing off as the rhino population continued to plummet and stricter security measures were implemented.

As the crisis mounted, Dearlove and Davies mounted a fundraising project aiming to seek South African government permission to transfer up to 200 white and black rhinos to breed and multiply in northern Queensland.

The ambition of the project was later scaled back, aiming to import about 80 animals to a rhino breeding area at the Taronga Western Plains Zoo (about a five-hour drive northwest of Sydney) or possibly the Monarto Zoo in South Australia or Orana Wildlife Park in New Zealand.

But now the project is being wound up, with pledges made this week to “redirect donor contributions directly to projects capable of delivering immediate, measurable outcomes for rhino survival”.

According to an announcement on the project website: “The landscape for rhino conservation has changed. South Africa’s proposed restrictions on rhino exports outside of African range states and ongoing policy uncertainty mean that continuing with our original mission is no longer viable in the foreseeable future.”

In a press statement on 26 August, TARP chair Davies said that following a recent Request for Proposal process, it was now committing A$840,000 (R9.6-million) to seven organisations working to protect rhinos in South Africa, Namibia and Zimbabwe.