Hon House Chairperson, microchipping is part of the strategy we are applying. It is actually published in the regulations as well, that there is a need to microchip. I did not speak about the deeper strategy, but amongst other aspects there is the microchipping, which is compulsory.
There is also the following of a hunt by a well-trained conservation officer until a hunt is done - or missed, because every permit does not necessarily lead to a hunt actually happening. Therefore, the following of the hunt by a trained conservation officer, and people working very closely with him, are part of the regulations. People are no longer allowed to hunt on their own without being inspected.
I did not refer to some of the things. Amongst these is how we manage the stockpiles. In South Africa it is actually illegal to possess a rhino horn when you do not have a permit. Even that was not quite clear. Therefore, we have strengthened the regulations, even to the point of prescribing how we manage our stockpiles. Our government stockpiles are audited every year, but the private sector stockpiles are not audited. So, we have extended that part of the regulations to apply to others as well. The regulations are quite broad and include these other issues.
For the people who are dubious, in the legal sense, let me say that we have embodied in the regulations a section that provides for us as provinces to be able to say a clear "no" if the people who are applying to hunt come from countries whose regulations in regard to biodiversity and conservation are not up to scratch. We want to follow these hunts. Part of this is following the hunt up to the end, wherever any rhino or other trophy head ends up. We want to follow this and the authorities on the other side can monitor it and so on. That is how we are closing the loopholes we are dealing with, in order for us to be able to ensure that even in legal hunting and trading, the product ends up in a country where the laws are very clear.
In the memorandums of agreement that we are drafting there are some issues which I am going to highlight. I will refer to just a few of them, because time is short.
There is awareness and education about its being an aphrodisiac or otherwise. We believe it is otherwise. The Chinese Minister who is my counterpart, and with whom I had a discussion about this particular matter, said to me that they didn't believe in the aphrodisiac issue, but they thought it was important we should jointly put into the memorandum of understanding a section to do with having an awareness campaign and education. We have joint chipping and joint research, and there should be any other methodology that we can use together. There are two MOUs that we are going to sign. If there had been time, if there had been 48 hours in a day, I would have been to these two countries or they would have been here, in order to sign the two MoUs, so that we can begin implementation. In the meantime we have started.
By the way, I would also like to say that the Chinese government alerted us to a consignment coming from South Africa, full of rhino horns, ivory, lizards and so forth. This ended up in Hong Kong. After we had been alerted to this, we sent people who do DNA samples to check where these things really came from. That is why chipping and all the other scientific measures are necessary.
We are working with the Department of Science and Technology to try to detect people's movements by heat. That is the kind of technology we have. This is so that if there is movement in the countryside, in the bush, where a rhino is about to be poached, we can detect it through the heat of that human being. It is something that we are working on with the Department of Science and Technology.
So, colleagues, let's talk about anything or everything that we think of, so that we can deal with the protection of our country's assets. We believe that it is all intended to give our country a bad name. Thank you very much.