+8 votes
Rhino Rescue Project
Description
A woman I definitely feel the world should know is conservationist, Lorinda Hern. This remarkable young woman has taken on the plight of South Africa's endangered rhino population, and over the past 5 years, played a crucial role in swaying public opinion from supporting the legalised trade in animal parts to targeted demand reduction in end-user countries instead - often in the face of aggressive opposition.
It was a brutal poaching attack on her family's private nature reserve that motivated Lorinda to leave her position as a full time university lecturer in 2010 and to devote herself to rhino conservation instead. Nothing ever prepared Lorinda for seeing at first hand, the horror of an animal she’d grown up with, mutilated and left for dead. She instantly made the decision that it was her duty to step in to do what she could to stop the slaughter and so, she founded Rhino Rescue Project (RRP). Few individuals in South African conservation circles have faced so much adversity, most likely because the revolutionary anti-poaching method Lorinda pioneered (where rhino horns are infused with animal-friendly compounds, colouring agents and radioactive isotopes to deter poachers) threatens several individuals and institutions that stand to profit from the legalised trade in rhino horn.
Despite being a prolific academic (obtaining all her under- and post-graduate qualifications cum laude) Lorinda is involved hands-on in the treatment of every animal RRP works on. At almost 6" tall, Lorinda looks like she would be equally at home in front of the camera or in the boardroom. Proof that you don't have to fit a certain "profile" to be successful in any field - you just need conviction, passion and integrity. This visionary conservation powerhouse will stop at nothing to see the animals she loves safe from harm - even if her views make her unpopular in established (and still predominantly male) conservation circles. "I refuse to sit idly by whilst rhinos go extinct on our watch. My greatest fear is children will one day ask me what I was doing while rhinos went extinct and I would have to answer: 'I did nothing; I thought someone else was taking care of it.' We don't have that luxury; we have to be our own heroes in this story".
Everyone can learn from Lorinda's tenacity in pursuit of her goals, to embrace the “out of the box” thinking women so often bring to the table. To date, Lorinda and her team have safeguarded at least 300 rhinos and they have no intention of stopping there. Because of extraordinary women like this one, society DOES have the luxury of saying "someone is taking care of it". Lorinda inspires many with her quick wit, her cool, calm air when things get heated and the graciousness, gratitude & humility with which she gets the job done, despite making enormous personal sacrifices so that an iconic African behemoth may live for our children's children to see and enjoy.
http://africageographic.com/blog/the-inconvenient-solution-to-the-rhino-poaching-crisis/
www.rhinorescueporject.org
615 views Nov 17, 2015
John Bennett 420 points
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Shirley Aung
The RRP Horn Devaluation Program is a very effective poaching and consumer deterrent. Demand elimination is the best long term solution to saving wild rhinos, across their range, from extinction.
+8 votes
Nov 18, 2015
Loraine Liebenberg 730 points
An excellent short to medium term option to help protect rhino from poachers. We should be using every means at our disposal to stop the onslaught.
+7 votes
Nov 17, 2015
John Bennett 420 points
Demand reduction for Rhino horn is very important to protect Rhino for the future.
+7 votes
Nov 18, 2015
anonymous
What an inspiration Lorinda is and we can all learn from her passion and tenacity on achieving great things for our precious wildlife.
+7 votes
Nov 18, 2015
anonymous
From Caroline Mason
The world needs to read the real story of Lorinda Hern and Rhino Rescue Project (RRP). Their groundbreaking horn treatment is a truly pro-active response to poaching and it works! After much well publicised criticism of their work RRP are quietly carrying on treating rhino. Lorinda Hern and RRP deserve much much more than this attack by vested interests of the pro-trade lobby - a treated horn makes it un-sellable and therefore worthless. And it is worthless, unless it is on a rhino's head.
+6 votes
Nov 17, 2015
Cam Steele 1,210 points
This is brilliant! Many thanks for sharing and making aware. We know demand reduction is making very positive inroads into Vietnam and China. It is effective measures like this which the Rhino Rescue Project offers, that can really help buy that much needed time to help end this global poaching tragedy. Lorinda Hern and her team should be commended for their tireless work to help save the Worlds magnificent Rhino... This is a winner for Rhino!
+6 votes
Nov 18, 2015
anonymous
Lorinda doesn't do this for money or fame, she does it for her love of Rhino and saving them from certain extinction. We can all learn something from her dedication she works tirelessly and she has an amazing team behind her. We should be trying to save them not pushing for legal trade as it has been proven not to work.
+6 votes
Nov 18, 2015
Wild and Free
Thank you for acknowledging the Rhino Rescue Project which is the best short to medium term solution we have against rhino poaching.  Whilst international NGO's concentrate on demand reduction campaigns, the RRP protects rhinos in the wild - which is where we want to see them.  Please do not be influenced by those who want to trade rhino horn.  These same wildlife ranchers and their supporters have attempted to denigrate the RRP for one reason only:   it exposes their trade agenda.   Wildlife activists would be grateful to see all rhinos receive horn treatment coupled with an advertising campaign warning poachers that the horn has been rendered useless.  
To prevent an escalation of rhino poaching we need to get ALL rhinos back on Appendix I at CITES.
+6 votes
Nov 18, 2015
Antitrading 480 points
Nobody has more insight into ending poaching than Lorinda Hern.
+5 votes
Nov 17, 2015
hoglet3 370 points
The Rhino Rescue Project has to be the way forward - making the horn unsaleable and possibly toxic to end users - nobody needs a rhino horn except the rhino. Lorinda Hern has shown by bravely continuing the project in the face of vilification and criticism that very few treated rhinos have been poached. What happened to the Dutch lottery money that was earmarked to protect many more rhinos in this way?  One might almost think that vested interests or pro traders had sabotaged the project. However, Lorinda has continued undeterred, refining the formula and the method of infusion. One only wonders why more private reserves and rhino owners do not protect their rhinos in this way. The government, if it were not so focused on trade as a solution could also start to use this method.
+5 votes
Nov 18, 2015
Derek 1,040 points
As someone who'd previously tried to get conservation interested in the concept of soiling horns via colour, paint, oils.. or frankly, whatever it took, without harming them - in order to reduce the demand, and thus poaching of Rhinos - I have to say that, when I finally became aware of the Rhino Rescue Project via Facebook (only July last year), I was pretty happy, and knew this was the initiative I was going to support, in whatever way is available to me. I am a huge fan of both Lorinda, and her project, and will continue supporting, and promoting them in these various ways. RRP rocks !!!
+5 votes
Nov 18, 2015
anonymous
the way to go! Lorinda walks her talk! may she grow even stronger!
+5 votes
Nov 18, 2015
anonymous
Most definitely the way forward to protect Wild Rhino - no need to saw off their horn which they need! Thank your Lorinda and RRP for your dedication to saving our RHinos!
+4 votes
Nov 19, 2015
Antitrading 480 points
The other means to saving rhino is de-horning.  Studies have shown that de-horned rhinos do not behave according to the species normal behaviour.  Bulls that ware de-horned show signs of resignation.  A heart rendering photograph shows a rhino using its horn saving a zebra calf that was stuck in mud from a sure death.  The work done by Lorinda her is aimed at not maiming rhino at all.  It holds no danger for defacing rhino, keeping the dignity of the animal in mind.  RRP is the only way forward to protect rhino from extinction and keeping rhino in nature as God intended. The most important issue for me as a person is to see the love and care that Lorinda put into the development of RRP.  RRP is the only valid product on the market that will end the demand from users and that will make the end user realise that rhino horn is not medicine
+3 votes
Nov 18, 2015
anonymous
RRP should be used to help stop poaching and eliminate all demand for rhino horn. It is proving an effective poaching deterrent where it has been used and well targeted Demand Elimination Campaigns in Asia are finding that the threat of being poisoned by contaminated rhino horn is a powerful tool to use when persuading consumers to stop using rhino horn as a cure-all and for recreational use.
+2 votes
Nov 19, 2015