VietNamNet Bridge – A Vietnamese delegation and the South African Department of Environmental Affairs signed an agreement on protecting rhinos on September 28.
The agreement will allow competent agencies of the two countries to closely coordinate in the combat against rhino horn smuggling. The two sides will set up joint operational mechanisms to ensure that Vietnamese people will not buy rhino horns in South Africa and transport them to Vietnam.

The document is a comprehensive agreement that includes terms on wildlife protection, law enforcement and controlling measures against unlawful hunting and prosecution of suspects.

According to the World Wildlife Fund (WWF), hundreds of rhinos have been killed in the past few years and as many as 302 individual animals have been slaughtered since the beginning of 2011.

“In Vietnam, people don’t know much about rhino. But we have a billion people who use oriental medicine and believe rhino horn is a treatment. It’s a false belief, we need to tell them that, and that wildlife here in South Africa is connected to their lives in Vietnam,” said Nguyen Trung Kien, from the Vietnamese Embassy in South Africa.

Kien was among a senior Vietnamese delegation who met with the South African Department of Environmental Affairs to finalize an agreement on wildlife protection and law enforcement – the core focus is the 311 rhinos that have fallen prey to the bullets and chainsaws of international crime syndicates this year.

Several Vietnamese nationals have been caught smuggling rhino horn out of the country. The latest case is that of Duc Manh Chu, who tried to smuggle 12 rhino horns through OR Tambo International.

Vietnam did not have a specific campaign around rhino poaching, said the chief of the Vietnamese delegation said. He said that in Vietnam, the belief persisted that rhino horn could cure cancer – contrived, according to conservationists, by wildlife syndicates to fuel more profit in the bloody trade.

“Personally, I don’t believe in that statement or rumor. We have got a medical research institution involved in a process to verify if rhino horn can cure cancer, and we will make that public.”

But Kien said in Asia, oriental medicine had ancient roots that were trusted. “In oriental medicine, you learn by experience. A thousand years ago someone said the use of a product could cure… people still believe that today… ”

PV