It was September 2014 and I can still feel the excitement of the first World Youth Rhino Summit as hundreds of young delegates gathered in iMfolozi, Kwa-Zulu Natal to send out a worldwide call to say: Don’t forget about the youth in this fight to save the rhino.

There was a lot of expectation riding on the shoulders of the Vietnamese delegation and I found myself at the opening of a game capture boma with two nervous teenagers, Nguyen and Bui. This small boma was the unfortunate new home for two rhino calves after their mothers were poached in the most horrific way for their horns. I don’t advocate touching of wild animals but the smallest rhino baby walked right up to the opening when the three of us crouched down and I will forever remember the words of the young teen as he slowly reached out and pushed his hand gently against the thick but soft skin and whispered, “He is breathing, his skin is moving.”

Ironically, two years later, this fabled home of the white rhino that saw the youths’ enthusiasm and hope, is facing the highest levels of rhino poaching ever. If we want to get technical, a more than 400% increase compared to five years ago. Some call the rhino poaching a crisis, some call it a war, and others even call it a campaign. What about a genocide?

Genocide is defined as the ‘intent to destroy, in whole or in part’. I don’t see why this can’t apply to the mass slaughter of our rhinos. Maybe when we call it a genocide people will take it more seriously.

As an embedded journalist filming for my documentary, STROOP, I’ve witnessed the brutal reality of what our country is dealing with. I’ve seen more carcases than I can remember and I find it impossible to erase the smell from these crime scenes. I’ve spent days in dingy courtrooms across the country where alleged poachers are treated like heroes by their extended families and supporters. I’ve walked the back streets of Asia where I’ve come face to face with illegal wildlife traffickers and also found myself in one of the most difficult interviews I have ever done - a rhino horn end user in the polite comfort of her own upmarket home in Hanoi.

Back in South Africa, I’ve questioned an emotionless trafficker of rhino horn after his trial and, for the first time at the end of 2016, I couldn’t contain the tears when I heard that the world-famous rhino called Hope had passed. She survived a poaching attack and against all odds continued to fight for her life for 18 months. I was privileged to document a lot of her journey and witness her fight for survival. She was, for a lot of us, the light at the end of the tunnel. But her light will live on and she will forever remain the face of rhino poaching survivors.

If you’ve been on Twitter recently you would have noticed that many have not been fond of 2016, and that’s putting it lightly. Hashtags like #2016MustGo and #2016worstyearever made the top of the trend list for days. Maybe it has been the worst year and we all have our own reasons, but one thing I do know is, it has also been the worst year for rhinos. 

I don’t need to know if we are going to be ten percent down or ten percent up, I know that in my three years of investigating this ‘world of greed’, I have never seen so many alleged poachers standing in the dock. The number of rhino orphans who have lost their mothers to poachers has increased dramatically. 2016 has been the worst year for rhinos on so many levels, because beyond looking at figures, we also suffered the worst drought in twenty years where many have told me (off the record) that the losses have been massive and it’s important to understand that like rhino orphans, these drought rhinos don’t make the official stats. Private rhino owners have also told me that bureaucratic sluggishness has crept to an all-time high as well as the practice of selling of permit information to poachers looking for an easy target. Corruption has infiltrated throughout the system.

I’m sure we all want to put the lid on 2016 and we are all looking to make 2017 a better year, but it can only be better if you make it so. The greatest victories in history didn’t happen because of governments but because of the people. Many years from now, don’t you want to look back on 2017 as having been one of those many years that went by quickly, but specifically as a strong memory of opportunities grasped, action taken, and lives changed. They may not be human lives, but they are lives just as important.

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