Prevention Measures – StopRhinoPoaching.com
– Vanina Harel
Elise Daffue founded StopRhinoPoaching.com in 2010 primarily as an informative web-based platform about rhino poaching, the syndicates and the characteristics of the demand. However, they started getting involved in fundraising not much later as more and more people got involved and wanted to help. StopRhinoPoaching was elected best NGO of the year in 2012 because of the huge success of their projects.
The first part of their work consists of visiting reserves to monitor their efforts against rhino poaching. The team has got a list of essential criteria that the reserves have to meet in order to receive help. The careful selection process allows responsible allocation of funds to those where the money will be efficiently used. It is very rare that reserves actually receive cash hand-overs. Most commonly, the NGO will pay invoices and provide the reserve with something specific that they need, eventually doing an equipment hand-over.
StopRhinoPoaching.com is also responsible for training rangers and anti-poaching teams. They have to make sure that the right people are trained and that they are doing their best to protect the reserve. They have to be passionate people, completely dedicated to the cause. StopRhinoPoaching.com also ensures that the anti-poaching units have the required equipment to succeed in their work.
The third project is the training of tracker dogs. StopRhinoPoaching.com has already successfully allocated 22 tracker dogs to various reserves in South Africa. The team manages the training of the dogs, but also visits reserves and decides whether they are able to take a dog. The monitoring of the placement is also essential to make sure the project is successful.
Another crucial aspect of Elise’s team’s work consists of liaising and networking between role players. It seems that businesses that work with StopRhinoPoaching.com also benefit from their sponsorship, as people who want to help the rhinos will support those companies.
Finally, StopRhinoPoaching.com is involved in community education in local schools. It is crucial to inform the communities surrounding reserves with rhinos about the crisis and it helps set up an informant system. The locals are rewarded for giving information about a coming poaching event. This intelligence system has proved extremely efficient in preventing poaching events. The integration and education of the local communities is highly important in the protection of rhinos.
StopRhinoPoaching.com is a team of passionate and dedicated people who are doing their best to allocate funds appropriately to reserves that will benefit most from the help. It is not an easy task as well as a huge responsibility to select those reserves that will be trustworthy and responsible in their use of funds. Nevertheless, they have been very successful up to now, allocating most of the received income to the cause and making a huge difference in the reserves in which they work.