ONE-HORNED
RHINO - ENVIRONMENT
News: Smugglers trafficking rhino horns with impunity: report
What's
in the news?
● The seizure of rhino horns by weight has increased after 2017 despite a reduction in poaching, a global threat assessment report presented at a convention of the conservation agencies in Panama City, said.
Key
takeaways:
●
A comprehensive analysis titled ‘Executive Summary of the Rhino Horn
Trafficking as a Form of Transnational Organised Crime (2012-2021): 2022 Global
Threat Assessment’, was presented at the meeting of the Conference of
Parties organised by the Convention on International Trade in Endangered
Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES).
●
The 12-day meeting will end on November
25.
●
Supported
by the World Wide Fund for Nature, the Wildlife Justice Commission (WJC)
prepared the document on the rhino horn trafficking during the decade from
January 1, 2012, to December 31, 2021.
●
The report said six countries and
territories have dominated the rhino horn trafficking routes from the source to
the destination locations although more than 50 countries and territories were
implicated in the transnational crime.
● These countries were South Africa, Mozambique, Malaysia, Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, Vietnam, and China.
Go
back to basics:
Greater
one-horned Rhinos:
● The greater one-horned rhino (or “Indian rhino”) is the largest of the rhino species.
Physical
Appearance:
●
Indian Rhinos are brownish-grey in colour
and are hairless.
●
They have knobby skin that appears to be
armour-plated. A single horn sits on top of their snout, and their upper lip is
semi-prehensile.
● The greater one-horned rhino is identified by a single black horn about 8-25 inches long and a grey-brown hide with skin folds, which gives it an armour-plated appearance.
Habitat:
●
It is confined to the tall grasslands and forests in the foothills of the Himalayas.
● The Great one-horned rhino is commonly found in Nepal, Bhutan, Pakistan and in Assam, India
Conservation Status: Greater One-Horned Rhinos (Rhinoceros unicornis) - Vulnerable.
Conservation
efforts:
●
The Ministry
of Environment and Forests (MoEF) has launched a National Conservation Strategy
for Indian One-Horned Rhino and the conservation initiatives for Rhino has
also enriched the grassland management which helps in reducing the negative
impacts of climate change through carbon sequestration.
●
New
Delhi Declaration on Asian Rhinos 2019: Signed by India, Bhutan,
Nepal, Indonesia and Malaysia to conserve and protect the rhinos.
●
Project to create DNA profiles of all rhinos by the Ministry of Environment
Forest and Climate Change (MoEFCC).
●
Indian
Rhino Vision 2020: It is a unique programme where the
government partnered international, national and local organisations for the
conservation of the rhinos. Under it, Manas has received a total of 22 rhinos
from other protected areas.
● The Indian and Nepalese governments have taken major steps toward Indian Rhinoceros conservation with the help of the World Wildlife Fund (WWF).
Five
Rhino species:
●
White Rhinos - Africa
●
Black Rhinos - Africa
●
Greater one-horned Rhinos - India
●
Javan Rhinos - Asia
● Sumatran Rhinos - Asia.
Status
on the IUCN Red List:
●
Black
Rhino - Critically endangered. The African species is
the smaller of the two.
●
White
Rhino - Near Threatened. Researchers used In Vitro
Fertilization (IVF) to generate an embryo of a northern White Rhino.
●
One-Horned Rhino - Vulnerable.
●
Javan - Critically Endangered.
●
Sumatran Rhino - Critically Endangered. In
Malaysia, it has become extinct.
●
In India, only the Great One-Horned Rhino
may be found.