Rhino Wars by Brent Stirton

Photo Credit: Brent Stirton

Brent Stirton is the senior correspondent for Getty Images and Verbatim Photo.

He does most of his work for National Geographic Magazine, Human Rights Watch, Le Figaro, GEO and other international titles.

Brent shoots issues related to the environment, to diminishing resources and on global health issues. His commercial clients include Coke, Nike, and Novartis, amongst others.

Rhino Wars

Nature, first prize stories

April 27, 2016

Rhino rancher Dawie Groenewald, on his game farm in Polokwane, South Africa. He is one of the driving forces behind the effort to legalize the rhino trade. Groenewald is the subject of a six-year-old court case involving multiple charges related to illegal rhino horn theft and money laundering. He denies any wrongdoing.

Demand in Asia for rhino horntraditionally valued for its medicinal propertiesis rising steeply, as increasing prosperity in the region means more people can afford to pay the extremely high prices involved. This puts growing pressure on a species already threatened with extinction. In 2007, South Africa, home to 70 percent of the worlds rhinos, reported losing just 13 to poachers; by 2015 that had risen to 1,175. Unlike elephant tusks, rhino horn grows back when cut properly. Rhino rancher John Hume is among those attempting to end the international ban on trading in rhino horn, and to farm rhinos commercially, a move fiercely opposed by conservationists, who say a legal trade could doom rhinos.

Commissioned by: Getty Images Reportage for National Geographic