BY TONY CARNIE
Park rangers in Africa’s most famous rhino reserve are going hi-tech to push back against the relentless assault by horn poachers‚ thanks to a R10-million injection.
Plans to establish new “Smart Park” strategies in the Hluhluwe-iMfolozi Park in KwaZulu-Natal follow a deadly poaching onslaught in the 96 000-hectare reserve where the world’s last southern white rhinos were rescued from extinction just over a century ago.
KwaZulu-Natal suffered a record loss of 221 rhino during the past year‚ most of them in Hluhluwe-iMfolozi.
But now the tide may be turning with the announcement that the Peace Parks Foundation and Ezemvelo KZN Wildlife have signed a memorandum of understanding to establish a new intensive protection strategy‚ largely funded by the Dutch and Swedish postcode lotteries and other private donors.
