Saving the Survivors

Location: South Africa

Donation amount: £35,000 

Saving the Survivors is a field-based Southern African conservation organisation that works hard to maintain the region’s rich biodiversity by caring for and rescuing endangered species.

The organisation provides critical and emergency veterinary intervention, care and support, by partnering with governmental, non-governmental, community and private stakeholders. 

Saving the Survivors also develops and supports conservation programmes, while providing high-level research into endangered wildlife.

This donation from Remembering Rhinos assisted Saving the Survivors in the treatment of Seha, a white rhino bull, and Thembi, a white rhino female. Both suffered horrific facial wounds as result of poaching, and the donation enabled the organisation to provide long-term treatment to both survivors.

It is a mark of the great work of Saving the Survivors that both of these rhino went on to successfully reproduce.  

Camera traps deployed in the Okavango Delta

Rhino Conservation Botswana

Location: Botswana

Donation amount: £10,000    

Rhino Conservation Botswana plays an important part in the protection of black and white rhinos on behalf of the Botswana government. They aim to ultimately increase numbers by repopulating both in the country.  

Rhino Conservation Botswana’s fully trained teams closely monitor the rhinos in their natural environment using a world-class monitoring system. By building insights to help them understand the rhinos’ behaviour, they can contribute towards the animals’ future breeding success.  

Our donation has provided Rhino Conservation Botswana with 50 state-of-the-art cameras for deployment in the Okavango Delta region, enabling them to capture even more data on these precious animals. This data is shared with other Departments of Wildlife and national parks, so that informed decisions can be made to give rhinos the best chance for population growth right across Africa.

The Ol Pejeta Conservancy

Location: Kenya

Donation amount: £11,500

The Ol Pejeta Conservancy is a 360 km² conservation park in Central Kenya's Laikipia County. Situated west of Nanyuki, between the foothills of the Aberdares and Mount Kenya, this 29-year-old project supports black rhino conservation and the mitigation of human conflict.  

Illegal poaching of black rhinos for their horns means that the animals remain under huge threat. Kenya is trying to counter these dangers by improving law enforcement and security, along with monitoring and biological management. 

But such activities need to be implemented by well-trained and equipped patrolmen - the first line of defence for the rhinos.

Our donation is expected to help replace the patrolmen’s ineffective and aging binoculars with new improved ones. The team will also receive a motorbike, a VHF radio, a GPS radio, plus new spotlights for night monitoring. 

International Rhino Foundation work in Sumatra

Location: Indonesia

Donation amount: £18,000

The Sumatran rhino is the world’s most endangered rhino species - fewer than 100 individuals survive. Between 1989 and 1998, the population declined by at least 70%, making the Sumatran rhino perhaps the most endangered large mammal on the planet.

The largest populations of Sumatran rhinos can be found in Bukit Barisan Selatan and Way Kambas National Parks. Rhino Protection Units are critical to safeguarding the rhinos and other mega-vertebrates within these parks.

The units are highly-trained, four-man anti-poaching teams that intensively patrol key areas throughout the parks. They are the single-most stable and effective force in the protection of the National Parks.

The funding provided by Remembering Rhinos enabled the International Rhino Foundation to pay the salaries of Rhino Protection Unit staff, plus travel costs for the workers, and valuable equipment such as fuel for vehicles, computers and waterproof cameras.

African Parks

Location: Chad

Donation amount: £7,800

African Parks is a not-for-profit organisation responsible for the rehabilitation and long-term management of the national parks of Africa.

Working in partnership with governments and local communities, the organisation manages 15 parks and protected areas in nine countries, including the Democratic Republic of Congo, Malawi, Chad and Zambia.

African Parks is undertaking some extraordinary conservation initiatives to provide the black rhino with a fighting chance, although fewer than 5,000 of the animals remain.

In 2018, African Parks embarked on an ambitious project to return the black rhino to the nation of Chad. The last wild rhino was seen in this central African country in the 1970s, after decades of poaching drove them to local extinction.

Chad’s Zakouma National Park was once ravaged by poaching and poor security, but since 2010 it has been transformed into a secure and flourishing park thanks to a successful partnership with the Chadian Government and to African Parks’ unique conservation model.

In a historic move to aid in the long-term survival of this heavily threatened species, six black rhinos were reintroduced from South Africa to Zakouma in May 2018. Sadly, four of the six transported rhinos died, but the two that survived are now thriving under the watchful eye of the team, where the donation from Remembering Rhinos contributes to their ongoing care, monitoring and protection.

African Rhino Conservation Collaboration

Location: South Africa

Donation amount: £8,126

Over the past ten years, the Eastern Cape has seen its rhino population grow by an impressive 12%.

African Rhino Conservation Collaboration explains this success as an outcome of wide-ranging collaboration between not-for-profit organisations and government agencies, including law enforcement and conservation departments.

These units are driven by a joint determination to meet the poaching threat as it moves into Africa’s southernmost rhino enclave.

As a result, more conservation investment is being pumped into the Eastern Cape. Until ARCC received funding from Remembering Rhinos, all of its planning, implementation and coordination had been carried out pro-bono by its trustees.

But the donation allowed ARCC to employ its first dedicated coordinator for nine months, who could meet the growing threats and opportunities of rhino protection.

On the strength of the initial investment’s success, another £5,352 was pledged from another source. This paid for an additional six months of coordination.

Aaranyak India

Location: India

Donation amount: £26,500

The successful conservation of rhino in Assam and North Bengal demands rapid threat mitigation measures. Poaching of rhinos both within and outside Assam and North Bengal remained a challenge for frontline forest staff and needed better support and coordination.

Assam is the habitat of around 70% of the world’s wild Indian Rhino population, while Nepal shelters about 25%. 

The illegal trade of rhino horn continues in Asian markets, placing immense pressure on the remaining rhino population. But the forest guards standing between the poachers and rhino often do not get basic amenities like rain coats, winter jackets, sweaters or field shoes. As such, their normal patrols become hampered, leading to gaps in rhino protection.

The project provided valuable field canvas shoes, winter pullovers, wireless walkie talkies, raincoats, orientation programmes and medical supplies, among other provisions.

Remembering Rhinos contributed £26,500 to the fund for these much-needed items and services.

Meru Community work via Born Free

Location: Kenya

Donation amount: £23,000

Meru rhino sanctuary was established as part of an effort to restore rhino population in Meru National Park after being decimated in the 1970s and '80s through poaching. The existing 48km² sanctuary holds more than 100 rhinos - 31 blacks and 70 whites.

Plans to double the sanctuary size to respond to the increased demand for forage and space meant that the entire law enforcement operation would become a challenge for the rangers, and so local community members were approached for their help with rhino protection.

The goal of the Community Anti-poaching Project is to involve local community members along the Park border in the protection of rhinos. ‘Meru rhino champions’ were recruited and equipped to assist in rhino protection in MNP. These dedicated and passionate individuals acted as Born Free’s eyes and ears on wildlife crime being planned or undertaken outside the Rhino Sanctuary.

The champions were equipped with smart phones fitted with cameras and GPS systems to provide pictorials and geo-reference information to KWS Security and shared with Born Free. The champions receive funds for running the phones. They will also be given a small monthly stipend to facilitate their day-to-day activities.

Wilderness Foundation Africa

Location: South Africa

Donation amount: £25,000

Wilderness Foundation Africa works to protect and sustain wildlife through integrated conservation and education programmes.

Over the last 45 years, the Foundation has overseen direct action anti-poaching in the field, combined with large landscape wilderness management activities. It has developed rising young leaders from disadvantaged communities for a career in conservation.

Funding from Remembering Rhinos was donated towards the Foundation’s Forever Wild Rhino Protection Initiative, established to save the rhino from extinction. 

This has enabled the Foundation to carry out aerial operations in two national parks in the Eastern Cape, with the objective of improving the monitoring and security of their critically endangered black rhino populations.

The aerial operations are used for surveillance of the parks, following tip-offs of potential poaching. They will also search for missing or injured rhino, and allow the Foundation to locate the carcasses of poached rhino. Useful data on the birthrates of rhino calves and other insights into the populations may also be gained from the operations.

 

International Rhino Foundation work in Java

Location: Java

Donation amount: £18,000

Javan rhinos have been actively monitored and protected since the 1990s through a collaboration involving the International Rhino Foundation, Yayasan Badak Indonesia, WWF, and Indonesian government authorities.

Today, the foundation operates a comprehensive protection program in the park that focuses on population monitoring and habitat management.

The overarching goal of the program is to prevent the extinction of Javan rhinos while also overseeing other threatened species and critical habitat within the park.

Five four-man, highly trained Rhino Protection Units are the backbone of the program, and have prevented rhino poaching in the Park for more than 16 years. However, demand for rhino horn in China and Vietnam, as well as rhino poaching in Africa, continue to escalate - making the vigilant protection for this last population of Javan rhinos even more critical.

Remembering Rhinos’ £18,000 donation has contributed towards salaries, plus car, motorcycle and boat maintenance costs. It has also paid towards replacement field equipment such as cameras, GPS, uniforms, shoes, backpacks, sleeping bags, cooking tools, and other equipment. 

Care for Wild Rhino Sanctuary

Location: South Africa

Donation amount: £1,000 

The Care for Wild Rhino Sanctuary is the largest rhino sanctuary in the world.

The donation has paid for equipment for the anti-poaching unit, including spotlights, trial camera and headlamps.

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