A decade ago, the number of rhinoceros poached for their horns in southern Africa stood at about 60 each year – a cruel but relatively small illicit trade. Last year, more than 1300 rhinos fell to the poachers' guns.
This extraordinary and appalling slaughter should alarm everyone, raising as it does fears for the future of these majestic animals.
Last male of the species: Sudan, a northern white rhinoceros, is protected by armed guards. Credit:Getty Images
The demand has largely been fuelled by rising middle-class wealth in Asia, particularly in Vietnam and China. Rhino horn is marketed as a form of traditional medicine in Asia's nightclub scene, to be ground up and mixed into an expensive tonic on the false promise of a hangover cure. Shonky herbalists also claim the powder to be a treatment for cancer.
The social value of rhino horn is entirely as a status symbol; recent estimates put the cost at $60,000 a kilogram. It is the perverse price ascribed to rarity, for there is absolutely no medical benefit.
The true cost must not be measured only in dollars but devastation for animals. More than 6000 rhinos have been killed in the past 10 years, leaving four of the five species facing extinction.
Yet the rhino is only the most startling casualty of a newly flourishing trade in endangered animals, a harbinger for a much wider global conservation challenge as the world becomes richer.
Many other rare animal species – including tigers, pangolins and hornbills – are traded as a commodity, with past cultural practices exploited for profit in growing markets.
Ivory is another example. Tusks are increasingly prized as a luxury item in Asia, leading to a catastrophic collapse in some African elephant populations, with up to 30,000 killed each year. An international ban was imposed in 1989, but China and Japan are among several countries where ivory can be legally traded domestically, much of it suspected to stem from smugglers.
Countries gathered for a United Nations summit this past fortnight in Johannesburg pledged to strengthen measures against the illegal wildlife trade.
The effort is welcome, but the result must be more than just another round of condemnation and hollow promises. Governments need to make a greater investment in enforcement measures to curb the illegal trade in rare animal parts.
Australia should play a prominent role. While the marketplace for rare animal parts is not thought to be large in this country, the global nature of criminal syndicates involved in smuggling requires all nations to act.
The UN summit has called for all domestic ivory markets to be shut down to combat poachers using local sellers to launder their illegal international trade.
An attempt to legalise a domestic trade in farmed rhino horn was also rightly opposed for fear the source of horns could not be adequately monitored.
But crackdowns, while necessary, represent only a piecemeal approach to the problem. The bigger challenge is to confront a mistaken mindset that would exploit endangered species on the false premise of culture and tradition, or as a symbol of wealth.
The West is burdened with its own poor record, the colonial era marked by the trade in rare animals that drove species to near extinction. The rest of the world can learn from such mistakes, rather than pretending the issue results from a clash of civilisations.
China's President Xi Jinping has previously promised to abolish the ivory trade in China, and he should act to do so. A ban should extend to other endangered species.
The next generation should not be robbed of the Earth's wonderful creatures because of greed.