Vietnam, currently the world鈥檚 top consumer of rhino horn, is gradually being weaned off a habit that last year saw a record 1004 rhinos killed in South Africa.
Signs that demand is weakening came from polls of 1000 Vietnamese citizens in six major cities, including the capital Hanoi. But they coincide with news that last year鈥檚 record rhino toll is .
The polls compared attitudes to rhino horn between August last year, when campaigns against the use of rhino horn began, and August this year.
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In the second poll, 2.6 per cent of respondents said they would continue to buy and use rhino horn, down from 4.2 per cent before the campaign started, a reduction of 38 per cent. In Hanoi, the decline was twice as steep, falling from 4.5 per cent down to just 1 per cent.
鈥淭hese poll results demonstrate that, even in a relatively short period of time, our demand reduction campaign has succeeded in significantly and dramatically altering public perception and influenced behaviour,鈥� said Teresa Telecky of Humane Society International (HSI), the lobby group that helped organise the campaign, at a press conference in Hanoi last week. 鈥淭he results offer a vital ray of hope for the survival of rhinos.鈥�
Four countries named
A Convention on International Trade and Endangered Species (CITES) summit held in Bangkok, Thailand, in 2013 named Vietnam, alongside South Africa, Mozambique and the Czech Republic, as the countries most heavily involved in both the demand for and supply of rhino horn. In response, the Vietnamese government launched a in collaboration with HSI that aims to demolish the myth that rhino horn has medical benefits.
So far the campaign has disseminated messages through the 800,000 members of the Hanoi Women鈥檚 Association, the business community, local students groups and 40,000 school children, who received a book called I鈥檓 A Little Rhino. Advertisements appeared on billboards in Hanoi and at the city鈥檚 airport and on buses, while press articles carried the message wider throughout the country.
鈥淧eople who consume it actually believe it can treat cancer and rheumatism,鈥� says Telecky. 鈥淲e told people that rhino horn has no medicinal properties, and that it鈥檚 illegal to buy, sell or transport it.鈥� It鈥檚 a message that seems to be getting through. In the second poll, 38 per cent of respondents said they believed rhino horn has medicinal value, compared with 51 per cent before the campaign began. In Hanoi, this proportion was as low as 21 per cent.
Not done yet
Despite the encouraging results, supporters of the campaign remain dismayed by the showing that, as of 22 September, 787 animals have already been poached this year, rapidly approaching the 1004 killed in 2013. 鈥淲e鈥檙e still seeing serious levels of illegal killing,鈥� says John Scanlon, secretary general of the CITES secretariat. 鈥淭he poll figures are promising, but it鈥檚 the beginning, not the end of stopping this illicit trade.鈥�
鈥淎ny progress to date falls a long way short of considering it 鈥榡ob done鈥�,鈥� says Gayle Burgess, a specialist on consumer change behaviour at TRAFFIC, an organisation that monitors illegal poaching. 鈥淚f the sample accurately reflects the Vietnamese population as a whole, it would mean that there are still more than 2.3 million rhino horn users in the country, a considerable cause for alarm,鈥� said Burgess. There are only 25,000 rhinos left worldwide.
