The Bloody Rhino Horn Trade Our World

Record numbers of riders are being poached and killed in South Africa

for their horns. Hundreds of them have been shot by Vietnamese

hunters. And the horns are sold illegally in

Vietnam's. The horn is made of keratin, the

same material as fingernails, yet many people in Vietnam's believe it

can cure life-threatening illnesses. It's illegal to trade in rhino horn

in Vietnam yet I find people keen to sell it to me. With the Vietnamese

getting richer, the trade is likely to boom. The African rhino could

face extinction. Early morning in Hanoi. Laughing

yoga session. People here have plenty to be happy about. After a

half-century war against their former colonisers, the French, and

then against capitalism in the shape of the Americans, Vietnam's is now

one of the fastest growing economies in Asia. -- Vietnam. The Vietnamese

have no inhibition about shopping the brand names of the erstwhile

enemy. The wealthy classes you spent $50 billion on luxury goods last

year. One of the most sought after at luxury goods in Vietnam today is

more expensive than gold. It is rhino horn. I've been official

permission to report on the rhino horn trade here, and with an

interpreter, I go looking for it on the traditional Chinese medicine

Street, the best place, I am told, to buy rhino horn. Vietnam has

signed up to the convention on international trade in endangered

species. A poster here warns that trading Lorraine Hollande now

illegal -- rhino horn is now. We don't have much luck. Do you have

any rhino horn? Does anyone sell rhino horn here? That evening, I

slip away from my mind" shopping with a hidden camera. I find the

illegal traders have no such inhibitions, like the one directed

to in the back of a terrorist shot. And how much are you charging? --

Keillor -- tailor's shop. I tell the trader I am looking for a cancer

cure for my husband. He tells me he has several of these

horns in stock. They are from the Asian rhino, he says, which has been

hunted out of existence in Vietnam's. I make my excuses and

leave, explaining that it's out of price range. For centuries, people

in Vietnam's other countries in Asia have believed in the power of the

rhino horn, although biologists tell us it is made of the same material

as the human fingernail. This is the horn? I was only in Vietnam's are

few days, but when the word got around that I wanted to buy rhino

horn, people contacted me, offering to sell. This time, the trader

says, it from Africa. How do you know? He turns out to be

particularly obliging, even coming up to my hotel room to show me how

to prepare it. The essential item, he explains, is

a ball with a corrugated surface on which to grind the horn. Then mix it

with water or alcohol to drink. I go to the village outside Hanoi at

renowned for ceramics, whether Balzer made. They are not on open

display. We go through the back streets to find them. The woman at

the wheel tells me that she makes on average 200 calls for grinding rhino

horn a day. -- bowls. That is 60,000 a year from one pottery alone. In

the nearby shop at the back, they are stacked high for future use.

It's hard to estimate how many are sold or harmony people use rhino

horn in Vietnam's, but it's enough to have a catastrophic in Africa. --

Vietnam. This man is the director of Hanoi

zoo. He says he had to go to South Africa to collect rhino to bring

Vietnam's, to remind people what they've lost. The only reno to be

found in Vietnam today is here and the Zune, and it the African white.

-- zoo. He blames the misguided belief in the mystical power of the

horns. But environmental organisations say

that the poaching of hundreds of rhinos for their horns in Africa

could also bring the white rhino to the point of extinction. Many people

blame the Vietnamese appetite for the rhino worn for it like this in

Africa. -- horn for scenes. So how did it happen that the

Vietnamese are being blamed for a threatening the very survival of

this majestic animal? Most of the rhinos in the wild live in South

Africa today. Threatened with extinction 30 years ago, there made

a recovery. Although the black rhino is still considered endangered and

the white rhino remains on the threatened category. Nonetheless,

rhino hunting is permitted under strict rules. Fewer than 100

experienced hunters can apply for a permit every year to shoot just one

Rino, and they are required to keep the horn in tact as a trophy. The

argument is that hunting encourages privately owned rhino parks and

therefore adds to rhino numbers. Permits costing tens of thousands of

dollars contribute to the local economy. With no more rhino left to

hunt in their own country, Vietnamese hunters started applying

for South African term its ten years ago -- permits. By 2010, there were

more Vietnamese applying to shoot a rhino in South Africa than any other

nationality. Mr Dong, a wealthy businessman,

joined a hunt in South Africa six years ago. Something he says he now

regrets. He and his friends didn't know how to shoot. Mortally wounded,

the rhino limped off. It took three days to find, ten kilometres away.

So he took a long time to die? What happened up until then was legal.

What followed was not. Although Mr Dong appeared quite happy to talk

about it. How much money did the rhino horn

make? And who was it sold to? Vietnamese hunters were killing the

rhino for the horn and selling it illegally. When the Vietnamese had

used their permits, non- Vietnamese, including Thai bargirls, were paid

to fly to South Africa to as hunters and South African marksmen did the

shooting, also against the laws. In a series of trials in South Africa,

it became clear that Asian criminal gangs were involved. In 2012, South

Africa refused to give any more permits to applicants from

Vietnam's. -- Vietnam. The gangs have now turned from paying pseudo-

hunters, to putting on a huge scale. In the two years since the ban on

Vietnamese hunters, record numbers of rhino have been pushed in South

Africa. Killed for their horn. Much of the data on rhino horn in Vietnam

has been collected by the respected wildlife monitoring network,

traffic, here in Hanoi. They fear the situation could get worse.

Recently, they conducted a survey in which 60% of the people asked said

they wanted to acquire rhino horn. What we found was an alarming number

of people who are not currently consuming rhino horn, but if they

had the economic ability, the money, the disposable income, they would

and they would want to. And they have already decided that, even

though they know perhaps that it's illegal or they are aware of the

situation. They have already made a conscious decision. There is a

market for it and for those who have the money, it's readily available.

Some of the rhino horn being sold is fake and so, on my next unofficial

shopping expedition, I ask for proof. This time, I say I'm looking

for a hangover cure. Mr Winters me he is a traditional medicine

Doctor. He offers me a big slice of rhino horn. The price is the same as

before. How much does it cost? $6,000? He offers a list of

complaints that rhino horn can apparently cure other than cancer.

How come you can sell it openly? Is it legal to sell rhino horn in

Vietnam? The hunting permit he shows me

appears to be in order. White rhino horn from South Africa here. You

said you could take two? It turns out it was a family affair. His wife

went on the hunt with him and there is a picture of his eight-year-old

son standing beside a dead rhino. And he shows me the permit to import

the rhino horn, approved. There is a Convention on International trade in

in dangerous PCs... Except that the rules clearly state that the hunting

trophy, the rhino horn, must be kept intact, in the possession of the

Hunter and not under any circumstances sold.

A recent investigation by citing his into 14 permit holding Vietnamese

Hunters revealed that only seven of them still had their trophy rhino

horn intact. Back at Traffic, they despair at the lack of official

disapproval. Why is so little Lynden Dunn? In Vietnam at the moment, this

is high profit, low risk. You might get a slap on the wrist if you are

caught. They have no more rhinos. They don't see the demand here as

driving the problem? Can custom is not seize the rhino horn? They know

they can do more. I have seen changes in the last 12 months. I

think that the coroners, the smugglers, the networks that run

this trade are always one step ahead of Customs. -- the couriers. They

come up with new ways and new techniques to get the rhino horn

into the country. There is a culture here based on centuries held beliefs

that many outsiders find hard to comprehend. Consuming animal parts

can produce startling results. At a restaurant, I'm offered a local

delicacy. Freshly killed snake. Fellow diners are not so squeamish.

The snake bile mixed with alcohol is dead from -- is good for the

digester in and the blood, drunk while still warm, is good for

improving the virility of men over 40. I did not stop for lunch. And

then there are the non- so-called bear farms. -- Vietnam's so-called

bear farms. Every six months, their bile is removed from the gallbladder

with a tube. The bears OK, living in the cages?

It would be wrong to suggest that everyone in Vietnam is comfortable

with this sort of treatment of animals. The local campaigning group

Education for Nature, have sent letters to hundreds of wealthy

businessmen, who, they fear, look on rhino horn as a symbol of prestige.

They have pleaded with them not to use it.

They have transmitted shocking and graphic adverts on over half of the

country past 50 television channels. We have blurred this

picture of a rhinoceros is still alive after its horn and much of its

face was cut off. The message is dramatic and uncompromising. We

were, however, surprised by one complaint they received.

Is there they will at the top to stamp out the trade? While I'm in

Vietnam, I hear rumours that some of the country's most prominent

politicians are using rhino horn. I have no way of following up on the

rumour because no senior politician would talk to me. Five weeks

earlier, from London, I had asked to speak with relevant members of the

government is job I was told was to stamp out the illegal trade in rhino

horn, but I'm informed none are available to see me. The only

government official I'm allowed to talk to is the man responsible for

getting the government to abide by the conventions on the international

trade in indentured species. -- endangered. I put it to him that

cite his had asked Vietnam to introduce new laws to stop hunters

selling their rhino horn two years ago.

People saving rhino horn trade in Vietnam is high profit and risk. The

fines are not appropriate. Vietnam has been importing rhino

horn for almost ten years, now. Can you put your hand on your heart and

say that Vietnam is trying to stop the illegal trade in rhino horn?

Clearly, it's not enough. In South Africa, they have published the

figure for rhinos post last year -- poached last year. It is a 40%

increase on last year and the highest figure ever recorded. This

is an incredibly high increase in poaching and if it is maintained

even at this rate without increasing, we will reach the

tipping point for these animals. By the end of 2014, we will be in the

negative in terms of deaths approaching outstripping births and

the population will start to decline very quickly for rhinos. And some of

them have already gone. The rhino in Vietnam is gone. Apart from those

that are bought from Africa and put in zoos. I refuse to accept we could

live in a world where my nephews and my niece will only see rhinos in a

zoo. We have to stop thinking the way we have been thinking for so

long as conservationists. It's not about conserving the animal, it is

about changing people 's behaviour and their sense of responsibility,

their sense of ownership of these animals. We live in a global world.

And we are all responsible for the animals that inhabit that world with

us, as far as I'm concerned. Enough rhino horn has been traded and

consumed in Vietnam to sound the alarm bells of extinction for the

African white rhino. Procrastination is no longer an option for the

expert. Vietnam must take urgent action to put a stop to this bloody

trade. Our latest winter storm is

continuing to cause problems