URGENT. Please share. Save Kruger rhinos.
SANParks management are about to move Regional Ranger Don English out of Kruger’s IPZ – intense protection zone for rhinos – and faraway up north where there are few rhinos. As soon as this happens the poaching syndicates will infiltrate and smash the IPZ, and a lot of rhinos will be shot and slaughtered. To put this into perspective, when Don was suspended for two months October to December 2019 – on trumped up charges by rangers caught poaching (criminals masquerading as rangers) – during those two months poaching more than doubled.
Don English is the most critical rhino ranger on earth, because he is at the helm of protecting the largest population, and most importantly he is Kruger’s master of intelligence. He handles the informers – information – and warns his ranger teams of incoming incursions so that they can set up ambushes. Kruger is the size of a small country – most often poachers are caught because of intel.
I am sharing with you the trailer to an upcoming documentary ‘The Last Horns of Africa’ and you can reserve your free ticket at EarthxFilm.org – premiering April 17th. By some small miracle the director was given access to Don English before SANParks management became toxic. This is the best rhino documentary I have ever watched, because it is character driven, it is authentic with unparalleled access, and it takes you into the world few people know – the underworld of organized crime driven by the kingpins. In many ways, this sets up the stage for the Blood Rhino Blacklist documentary currently in the works, which will lift the veil on corruption in South Africa.
In ‘The Last Horns of Africa’ documentary there is an interview with Don’s daughter that nearly broke me, because it is the reality that few people know.
Every time he pursues poachers, and every time he leaves the park to meet with informers, his family never know if he is going to make it back alive. There is a part of me that is riddled with guilt for even fighting for Don to stay in the Kruger IPZ, because I know how much the #poaching #syndicates hate him and want to eliminate him. But the rhinos will die without him, and we are down to the last.
I am so sorry to Don’s family for all their suffering, mostly because of the awful way that he has been treated by senior members of SANParks management, and I know it would be a lot less heartbreak to just walk away. But his family were raised with the wild, just like my family, and the risks is something we all have to live with, or die with, because the only thing worse is doing nothing at all. Don English is one of a kind.
Please, stand with us. Keep Don in the IPZ.
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