Rhino poaching rages undiminished, but South Africans should not lose hope. Globally, crime involving wildlife is being taken far more seriously than in the past. Despite a decrease in media coverage of rhino poaching, the scourge has, tragically, not declined, with more than 750 rhino having been poached in South Arica this year by the end of last month.story_article_left1If anything, the statistics tell us that poaching remains on the increase.One can sympathise, then, with public frustration that despite millions of rands and man-hours going into fighting this crisis, it appears as if little has been achieved. This is not entirely true; I believe that quite a lot has been achieved, although perhaps with too little impact on the ground at this stage.It is obvious that we still have a long way to go before we see the trend reversal that we all so desperately want to see.Rhino and elephant poaching in our modern world is not without context. The poaching happening today is the result of a lethal cocktail of poverty, inequality and discontent in local rural communities on the one hand, and growing demand for wildlife products from increasingly affluent Asian markets on the other.The problem has been compounded by the emergence of sophisticated transnational crime syndicates and highly developed black-market trade networks; the militarisation of poaching in Africa; the strategy of stockpiling to "bank on extinction"; and the global terror groups that, according to the Elephant Action League, make more than $600000 (about R8.3-million) a month from the proceeds of elephant poaching alone.A market that is both demand and supply driven is difficult to measure or manage, a difficulty exacerbated by not knowing who all the role-players are or what vested interests they have. Wildlife trafficking is today among the five most lucrative illicit trades globally, estimated to be valued at around $10-billion a year. The complexity of the supply chain is matched only by the urgency of the need to act, because many species face imminent extinction within our lifetimes.What we may know, to some degree, is why local communities are driven to poaching. It is their burgeoning population of unemployed young people, who have no prospects of earning an income legally, combined with the outrageous sums that are paid in cash for wildlife products.full_story_image_hleft1These young people have no passion for, connection with or sense of responsibility towards wildlife. For many, wildlife is in fact a symbol of the lack of restitution and service delivery in South Africa. It adds up to an attractive environment for criminal syndicates.Say what you will from the comfort of your armchair, many thousands of people who live along the borders of our national parks were born into strife-ridden communities and learnt to use a weapon before a calculator. They witness violence and conflict every day - live, and not through newspapers and TV.Without job prospects or a sense of joint ownership and benefit sharing in the wildlife heritage that belongs to us all, they are easy targets for those with big wallets and clients who will stop at nothing to get what they want.On the other hand, we do not fully understand the details of an evolving supply chain that now incorporates a multiplicity of vested interests and role-players. These include rapidly emerging markets and uses for these "products" that we cannot yet quantify; fluctuating market forces; complex trade routes; widespread corruption; the role of global terror groups; "investors" who stockpile and control market flows; and how this all feeds into the trends we see on the ground every time a rhino is killed, which, horrifyingly, happens more than three times every day.The trouble with having these gaps in our knowledge is that any solution has to take into account these external factors because the trouble did not arise solely out of the local problems, and certainly will not be ended by addressing these problems alone.story_article_right2Solutions must be found that involve communities in genuine co-management and true benefit-sharing options for wildlife conservation. South Africa is about 20 years behind where we should be by now. Poachers should be turned into conservationists and all South Africans should share in valuing wildlife. But this alone will not address the current crisis of wildlife crime as the context has changed.Modern wildlife crime occurs within the context of all other sociopolitical, criminal and ideological global trends; solutions cannot be developed in a bubble that does not address the chain of events into which wildlife products are pulled.This poses serious challenges for the conservation community, which, by its own admission, is largely out of its depth, but weeps for every dead rhino as if a child has been lost.Perhaps the most important of conservation achievements is the growing recognition of the complexities and the need for an integrated strategy - globally, regionally and nationally - to manage wildlife crime as a facet of transnational organised crime.It is now being addressed at high-level government meetings, in anti-terror forums and at dedicated intergovernmental meetings. Conventions and declarations are being signed. Legislation is being enacted under which wildlife crime will be regarded in a far more serious light, and provision is being made to prosecute criminals across an array of activities. Measures are being sanctioned authorising both investigators and prosecutors to confiscate the proceeds of wildlife crime, so that criminals do not benefit from it.Local, regional and global task forces are being developed to tackle the syndicates on all fronts. Law enforcement agencies are being strengthened, with significant amounts of training invested in police, border control and customs officials, prosecutors and magistrates. Rangers and anti-poaching teams have been equipped and trained.Community projects are being established to develop sustainable, inclusive and balanced economic development based on the recognition that wildlife crime not only threatens biodiversity but is a major impediment to good governance and the rule of law, and reduces the revenue from wildlife-based tourism and sustainable utilisation of the resource base.story_article_left3The active engagement of local people and their right to co-management of our wildlife resources have been identified as being essential to effective monitoring and law enforcement in neighbouring parks and reserves.Much-needed support for the protection of our wildlife heritage has been provided through generous public and private donations, which have allowed equipment and man-hours to be pumped into systems weakened by declining budgets, inadequate capacity and poor priority-setting.Despite the apparent pessimism among many South Africans that we can win this war, arrests have been made (nearly double last year's number in 2015 thus far), prosecutions are becoming more successful, and mounting global pressure will stimulate more momentum to disrupt crime networks.We have to win this war, not for the sake of the rhino and elephant alone, but for the sake of the human lives that are lost due to related activities - drug dealing, human trafficking, terrorism and arms trading.Our rhino, elephant and pangolin are commodities in the same dark underworld that makes no distinction between ivory, human life or a weapon. So losing is simply not an option.Yolan Friedmann is CEO of the Endangered Wildlife Trust