6

Wouter is the leader of an armed anti poaching unit consisting of twenty men whose charge encompasses the care of all the wild animals in a 350 square kilometre area. With these figures in mind it is possible to grasp the near impossible task they are undertaking.

He tells me that by far the most serious poaching problem is that of the Rhino. For many years a well established network of criminals have been sending rhino horn to China and Vietnam to be sold as a medical component. There is little information to be found on the real effectiveness of this substance which is all but identical to human finger nails. Common sense tells me that it must be simply effective only as a placebo.

By far the most worrying element of this situation is the high price associated with the horn. It has a value of as much as $150,000 USD per kilogram. The bulk of this cash is made in China where it becomes a legal substance. The poachers who are tracking and shooting the animals, only the first step of the ladder in this criminal network, see about 25,000 RND which equates to over £2000. When there are animals of this value sharing the countryside with a population living below the global poverty line of less that 50p a day, you begin to understand the motivation of the these men.

It is not exclusively the ground war it used to be, high prices, which will only increase as the numbers decline, attract more and more sophisticated and organised criminals who mount their illegal hunting trips from helicopters using tranquiliser rifles containing poison that will spell certain death to the animal. The area that wouter and his team have to protect has now increased to include the air and as we drive into the park itself Wouter’s CB Radio crackles with air traffic information that his team are exchanging.




The Sabi river and the Sands river almost converge in an area now called the Sabi Sands complex in the Lowveld area, Mpumalanga province, South Africa. A nature reserve that shares its eastern border with the Kruger national park. It contains various lodges, most notably the Ulusaba resort owned by Richard Branson. As we entered the complex Ulusaba rises on the horizon atop a mountain shaped hill that is reminiscent of Tolkien’s Lothlorien.

This whole area is dissected into privately owned farm land. A number of farm owners can arrange a cooperative venture to join their lands creating a park. At two million hectares, Kruger is by far the largest of this kind in the area. Its smaller satellite Sabi Sands is one of many that offer a more intimate and less touristy option.