Every year, World Rhino Day is celebrated on
September 22. World Wildlife Fund, South Africa announced World Rhino Day to
create awareness about the crisis and the importance of saving different types
of Rhinoceros, which are:
Black Rhinos
White rhinos
One-horned Rhino
Sumatran Rhino
Javan rhinos
History
South African wildlife organizations created World Rhino Day in 2010 to increase awareness of the critically endangered rhinoceros’ species. A woman by the name of Lisa Jane Campbell expressed her desire to see at least five kinds of rhinos living around the globe in a letter she sent to Rhishja (another Rhino lover) in 2011. Since then, World Rhino Day has been observed annually to raise awareness of the critical need for rhino conservation as a result of the widespread poaching of rhinos for their precious horns.
World Rhino Day has grown in popularity, bringing together governments, non-governmental organizations, and individuals to fight rhino poaching and habitat destruction while highlighting how crucial it is to protect these iconic animals for upcoming generations.
Significance
World Rhino Day serves as a platform to mobilize support, educate the
public, and promote efforts to protect these magnificent creatures. Some major
highlights of the day, according to the World Rhino Day organization, are:
· To
protect rhinos through law-enforcement activities at the site level, and
support intelligence gathering and analysis to pre-empt and prosecute poaching
and trafficking of rhino products.
· To
implement effective biological and ecological management and monitoring of
rhino populations and their habitats to achieve optimum population growth
rates.
· To
reduce trade in illegal rhino products via better law enforcement in consumer
countries and promoting behaviour change by consumers and the closure of
markets encouraging poaching.
·
To
ensure that rhino conservation professionals are appropriately skilled and
trained.
· To
improve coordination within and between rhino range state conservation agencies
and professionals.
· To
engage with multiple stakeholders in rhino range states in accordance with the
equity triangle of recognition, procedure and distribution.
· To
explore and develop sustainable financing mechanisms and structures to fund
priority rhino conservation efforts.
