Rhino populations have decreased dramatically throughout Africa and Asia due to the devastating demand for their horn as an ingredient in Traditional Chinese Medicine and have never been in greater need of protection.
David Shepherd Wildlife Foundation (DSWF) have been proud protectors of rhinos since our inception in 1984.
By providing funding for monitoring, anti-poaching, and species protection operations across both Africa and Asia, we provide a boots-on-the-ground solution to rhino protection.
We also actively engage with government and international policy conventions (such as CITES), to ensure the toughest legislation is enacted and implemented to protect rhinos in the wild, and we continue to fight for an end to all trade in rhino horn.
Aimed at protecting both wildlife and communities. Many of these emergencies often take place in rhino bearing areas or involve key rhino populations in need of help to ensure their survival.
For nearly four decades, DSWF funding has gone towards protecting the world’s last remaining stronghold population of desert-adapted black rhinos, in Namibia. We focus on direct ground-based support, through ranger patrols who spend thousands of hours each year patrolling this arid and difficult terrain on foot, in search of poachers. This approach has been extremely successful in protecting rhinos, despite the extensive poaching in other parts of Namibia and across southern Africa.
As well as supporting anti-poaching teams, DSWF also fund research and monitoring programmes in Namibia to collate vital data on the remaining populations, which is imperative to their survival and in helping inform government and conservation protection strategies.
The majority of the rhino populations in the areas of operation DSWF support are outside of National Parks so vital work is carried out to proactively engage local communities who share the land and to establish positive and well-coordinated, understood conservation practices.
In Assam, northern India, our front-line conservation partners extensively protect three National Parks and one Wildlife Sanctuary that collectively are home to around 2,885 greater one horned rhino, out of a global population of less than 4,000. The recovery of the rhinos in this area has been a conservation success story that DSWF is proud to support, as we have for over two decades.
In addition to anti-poaching patrols, village defence teams and K9 units, our funding in India also goes towards undercover investigations into the trafficking of rhino and tiger parts, as well as training workshops for local police, forest, and judicial officials. Our hugely popular ‘Rhino Goes to School’ education activities teach local children to love rhinos and help them learn more about environmental issues, as well as giving them important transferable skills. Nature orientation camps, funded by DSWF are also hugely popular ways of engaging the local youth in the importance of conservation.
Across Asia, DSWF also support rapid action wildlife emergency initiatives in many forms, aimed at protecting both wildlife and communities. Many of these emergencies often take place in rhino bearing areas or involve key rhino populations in need of help to ensure their survival.
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All donations will help us continue our vital work conservation work to protect endangered species and turn the tide on extinction.
