There was a Reuters report carried by the Cape Times last month quoting Mr Clive Walker of the SA Rhino and Elephant Foundation as saying that the sale of rhino horn has been banned for the last 18 years without any visible effect, while the number of rhinos in the country shrank drastically from 20 000 head then to 1 500 today. It is time to reconsider the ban, and come up with some other measures more effective, Mr Walker concluded. I am not going to express an opinion on that, nor have I any intention of joining the debate on what is the best way to prevent poaching and let the number of rhinos multiply more quickly in Africa. My Government has only one purpose in mind, which is to effectively stop the use of rhino horn powder as medicine, thereby to curb the smuggling of rhino horns into Taiwan, and restore the good name of the country.
Let me from the outset admit that in traditional Chinese herb medicine, rhino horn was considered to be an effective cure for high fever for whatever cause. The way it is used is to grind it into very fine powder form, mixed with other herb medicine, boiled into a brew and given to the patient running a very high temperature. The amount used is very small, only a grain or two, so one horn could be used for thousands of patients. Whether it really works or not, I have no idea, since most of the people in Taiwan today, including myself, consult western-style physicians when we get sick, and they do not believe in the curative power of rhino horn at all.
