As Long As They Fight, We Will Fight.

As Long As They Fight, We Will Fight.

– Vanina Harel 

Founder of StopRhinoPoaching.com
Founder of StopRhinoPoaching.com

After a very interesting interview with Elise Daffue, founder of StopRhinoPoaching.com, I feel like people should be reminded that this is not a hopeless cause. It is very easy to get depressed by the statistics. The current situation for the rhinos is very bad and the activities out there are cruel. However, we do need to keep on fighting.

Elise was saying that most of her work today involves working in an office seven days a week, 20 hours a day. She does not get to see a live rhino very often anymore and it is easy to get blinded by the bleak reality of rhino poaching. Nevertheless, when she gets to go on a reserve to meet the people in the field, including the reserve managers, the rangers, and the anti-poaching teams, she says that they are so grateful for the work she is doing, that it gives her hope and courage to carry on. If the people who are directly involved in this war are still fighting, we need to carry on supporting them as much as we can.

It is the people in the field who are risking their lives every day, living in the bush, tracking the rhinos and protecting them. We are only able to help and support them indirectly to make sure they can do their job as well as possible. These people are passionate and totally dedicated to the rhinos and they are examples to follow.

In addition, what people tend to forget is that without all our work to help save the rhinos, the statistics would have been much worse than they currently are. The number of rhinos poached this year is scarily high. Predictions are that we will reach 1000 rhinos poached at the end of the year. However, we must remember that they would have been much higher if we had not done anything.

The number of arrests is increasing and communities surrounding reserves are becoming more and more aware of the crisis. Educational programs are in action to help raise awareness in local schools. Informants are rewarded for giving crucial information about potential poaching events, and many attempts have been prevented that way. We are starting to better understand the logistics of the syndicates and their overall organization. There is much more to do but we must not forget what we have already achieved. This is a difficult battle but it can be won, and we will succeed if we carry on fighting as we currently are. This is not a hopeless cause because we have already made a huge difference through our past efforts, and it will continue.

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