Zimbabwe security forces poached 200 endangered rhinos in two years
By Jeremy Hance, www.mongabay.com
February 14, 2010 Last week the secretary of the UN Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES), Willem Wijnstekers, announced that security forces in Zimbabwe had poached approximately 200 rhinos in a two year period. He did not say how many elephants were poached by security forces. The revelation means that Zimbabwe will have to explain the poaching to CITES or lose their ability to trade ivory. The minister of Environment and Natural Resources Management, Francis Nehma, says that the nation needs vehicles and helicopters to control the troubled nation’s widespread poaching problem. Prime Minister, Morgan Tsvangirai (in a power-sharing agreement with Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe) said that security forces involved in poaching must be brought before the law and punished. Rhinos have almost vanished from Zimbabwe due to a poaching epidemic.
