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From sharks, rhinos to giraffes - they are the focus of the species conservation conference in Samarkand. As of November 24, 185 states in Uzbekistan will be wrestling over trade bans and restrictions. There is a lot at stake: the fate of more than 230 animal and plant species is being decided. The organization Pro Wildlife warns in advance of dangerous steps backwards in the Washington Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES), which regulates or even prohibits the international trade in plants and animals.

The stash of illicit rhino horns, together with an assortment of other animal parts, was destined for the south-east Asian country of Laos. The National Parks Board of Singapore confirmed this week that 35.7kg of rhinoceros horns, valued at roughly S$1.13 million (just under R15 million), were discovered earlier this month during routine cargo checks. The horns were concealed inside four packages falsely declared as furniture fittings. The shipment also contained about 150kg of assorted animal parts, including bones, teeth and claws.

Singapore seized a record 35.7 kg of smuggled rhinoceros horns worth about S$1,130,000 ($867,430) en route to Laos, the largest haul in Singapore to date, the National Parks Board said on Tuesday. The haul was found earlier this month in a shipment of four pieces of cargo declared as furniture fittings, and also contained around 150 kg of other animal parts, including bones, teeth and claws.

The Kenya Wildlife Service (KWS) has commenced a 15-day ear-notching and tagging campaign at Ngulia Rhino Sanctuary and Tsavo West National Park set to have over 100 black rhinos targeted. The agency said in a statement on Tuesday 100 black rhinos will be fitted with LoRaWAN eartags and VHF transmitters over a 15-day period to enhance monitoring, security, and population management. The campaign, supported by partners under the Kenya Rhino Range Expansion (KRRE) initiative, is the country's largest single rhino ear-notching and tagging operation.

From 24 November to 5 December 2025, governments from around the world will gather in Samarkand, Uzbekistan for the 20th meeting of the Conference of the Parties (CoP20) to the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES). This meeting comes at a moment of great consequence for some of the world's most threatened species - elephants, rhinos, pangolins, Asian big cats and the critically endangered vaquita porpoise.

The pre-trial of Schalk Abraham 'AB' Steyn and Dawie Groenewald, accused of rhino horn possession, has faced multiple delays since their 2021 arrest. Schalk Abraham 'AB' Steyn and Limpopo game farmer Dawie Groenewald, who face charges of illegal possession and transportation of rhino horns, briefly appeared in the Nelspruit Regional Court today. Lowvelder reports the matter was postponed again, this time to January 21, 2026.

After the most recent rhino poaching incident in the Omaruru area, the tourism ministry has confirmed that the national total of rhinos poached in 2025 now stands at 37. According to the ministry, a rhino carcass was discovered on private farmland near Omaruru earlier this week, with its horns brutally removed. Investigations are ongoing, and law enforcement units, including the police and the ministry's Anti-Poaching Unit, have been deployed to the area to track down the suspects.

A bull black rhino has been found dead and dehorned on a custodian farm in the Omaruru district, the third rhino poaching incident reported in the area in recent weeks. According to Erongo police senior inspector Judith Shomongula, the case is being investigated under the Nature Conservation Ordinance as it involves the illegal hunting of a specially protected game species and theft of rhino horns. Police said the incident occurred sometime between December 2024 and 16 October this year.

A Chinese man has been found guilty of illegal possession of a pair of rhino horns worth US$120 000 and faces the nine-year mandatory jail sentence for the offence. Fuxi Wang, who had initially pleaded not guilty, was convicted after a full trial by Harare magistrate Ruth Moyo. He is expected back in court on Thursday, November 6 2025 for sentencing. The court heard that on February 20 this year, Wang wanted to export a purported sculpture from Zimbabwe to China through the Robert Gabriel International Airport.

High Court Judge Andree-Jeanne Tötemeyer has granted relief to conservancies in the Kunene Region, halting mining activities carried out by one Timoteus Mashuna in the Sorris Sorris conservation area, which hosts the endangered black rhino species. The judge said that only about 3,500 remain globally, with Namibia holding close to one-third of the global population. The western Kunene rhinos are the largest population of free-roaming black rhinos anywhere in the world and are classified as a Key-1 population by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature.

The Northern Cape Division of the High Court in Kimberley, on Friday, 31 October, ruled that rhino horn harvested from registered captive breeding operations can be exported for sale, as such facilities are devoted to conservation and not commerce.

A legal international trade in rhino horn is not about to immediately lift off, but a recent judgment raises issues that point to the direction that contestation in this terrain may take. The Northern Cape Division of the High Court in Kimberley, on Friday, 31 October, ruled that rhino horn harvested from registered captive breeding operations can be exported for sale, as such facilities are devoted to conservation and not commerce.

South Africa's Department of Forestry, Fisheries and the Environment (DFFE) has dismissed reports suggesting that the country intends to support reopening the international trade in ivory and rhino horn. The department reaffirmed its commitment to the global ban on ivory trade and rhino horn trade ahead of the upcoming CITES COP20 summit. In a statement, the department said: "South Africa remains fully committed to the international ban on commercial trade of ivory and rhino horn. Our policy is guided by science, ethics, and global cooperation, not by commercial interest."

The domestic and international relaxation of bans on trade in rhino horn has been a growing debate within conservation. Currently, international trade in rhino horn is banned under CITES, in response to growing concerns that increasing demand from Asian nations over the last decade has led to a poaching crisis that has decimated many African rhino populations. The reimplementation of South Africa's domestic rhino horn market in 2017 has reignited the debate as how best to mitigate a crisis that could see rhinos extinct in the wild within a few decades.