New strategy required to fight crime in Kruger National Park

To slow down losses of rhinos due to poaching, experts have called for the adoption of a comprehensive long-term strategy rather than the current reactive responses. Glenneis Kriel reports.

- Glenneis Kriel

In 2022, a total of 124 rhinos were killed in the Kruger National Park, according to a report by the Department of Forestry, Fisheries and the Environment. While this represents a 40% reduction on 2021, the white rhino population in the park had reportedly declined by 75%, from 10 621 in 2011 to 2 607 in 2021, and the black rhino population by 51%, from 415 in 2013 to 202 in 2021.

Julian Rademeyer, director of East and Southern Africa at Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime, said during a recent parliamentary committee meeting that the response to poaching and organised crime in the Kruger National Park should be adjusted to better reflect Mpumalanga’s struggle against organised crime.

“Mpumalanga’s violence and geographic position set it apart from other areas in terms of cash-in-transit heists, automatic teller machine bombings, kidnappings, hijackings, extortion, illegal mining and poaching. Criminal syndicates with tentacles in a range of criminal markets are the key corruption enablers in the province, [which is] besieged by a litany of scandals and assassinations,” Rademeyer said.