Black Rhino

Poaching remains the deadliest and most urgent threat to black rhinos. WWF is working with government agencies, local communities and other partners in Namibia, Kenya, and South Africa to support law enforcement agencies, develop and build on innovative tech solutions, and equip and train rangers to stop poachers.

• In Namibia, WWF is leading a consortium of national NGOs to help implement the country’s ambitious law enforcement strategy to combat wildlife trafficking. WWF also supports the Namibian government in the implementation of its national black rhino strategy, in part by moving rhinos from parks with significant populations to other areas that historically held rhinos but currently do not—a process known as translocation. WWF is also taking other security measures to protect both black and white rhinos, such as DNA sampling and the use of sniffer dogs.
• In Kenya, WWF works with rangers to stop poaching in high-risk areas. We help provide the proper training and technology to catch and deter poachers.
• In South Africa, WWF trains and develops new technologies that enable law enforcement agencies to address wildlife trafficking. TRAFFIC, the world’s largest wildlife trade monitoring network, has played a vital role in bilateral law enforcement efforts between South Africa and Vietnam. These efforts are supported by written commitments to strengthen border and port monitoring, along with information sharing intended to disrupt the illegal wildlife trade and bring perpetrators to justice.

WWF supports aerial population surveys at key sites such as Etosha National Park in Namibia. The surveys are critical for evaluating breeding success, deterring poachers, and monitoring rhino mortality. WWF is also working with partners to develop and implement cutting-edge technologies in range states to closely monitor key populations. When paired with boots-on-the-ground, innovative solutions like electronic identification and tracking tags, radio and satellite collars, night vision cameras, and camera traps provide us with the data we need to make important decisions for black rhino populations going forward. We install new thermal and infrared cameras and software systems that can identify poachers from afar and alert park rangers of their presence.

Community support and engagement is a cornerstone of WWF’s work, particularly in Namibia. Together with our Namibian partners, we assist communities to set up conservancies and help to remove barriers to the knowledge and capacity required to successfully govern conservancies and manage wildlife resources. These communal lands are now home to Africa’s largest remaining free-roaming black rhino population.

Community engagement also plays a role in South Africa, where we are looking to conserve black rhinos through community governance, training, and identification of alternative livelihood opportunities.

Namibia was the first African country to incorporate protection of the environment into its constitution. In 1996, the new Namibian government granted communities the right to create conservancies -- areas with defined borders and governance and management structures outside of parks -- where communities have the right to manage their natural resources. With WWF’s long-term support, the government has reinforced this conservation philosophy by removing barriers for communities to manage and benefit from the wildlife on their lands through efforts such as community game guards, robust monitoring, community engagement campaigns, partnerships between the communities and private sector tourism, and translocation projects, which relocate species into new habitats so that they have more space to breed. These communal conservancies—working with the government, nonprofit organizations and others—have restored populations of black rhinos and other native wildlife to the world’s richest dry land.