Why Hoedspruit?
Rhino Revolution is located in Hoedspruit, Limpopo, a small farming and wildlife community at the heart of South Africa’s greatest rhino population – the Greater Kruger Area. This includes Kruger National Park and the adjacent “corridor’’ of Private Nature Reserves where Hoedspruit is consequently the epicentre of the poaching crisis.
Rhino Revolution concentrates its support on the Private Reserves - whilst the National Parks also face enormous problems, they are relatively well funded.
Our focus area is approximately 300,000 hectares within a 50km radius. By raising more funds, we can protect more rhino by covering a greater area.
Accessibility
The town has only three major tar road entrances, namely the Tunnel road from Lydenburg (R527), the Phalaborwa/ Nelspruit road (R40) and the Kruger Park Orpen Gate turn off. This allows us to have a completely controlled and monitored environment by simply closing off these three access points.
Community
The community has a spirit of working together for conservation as seen by the large conservancies formed through the removal of fences over the last 20-30 years. These include Thornybush, Kapama, Blue Canyon Game Conservancy, Selati Game Reserve, Timbavati, Klaserie and many others.
Co-Operation
Rhino Revolution works closely with the Military Police, SAPS, ProTrack, Hemmersbach Rhino Force, Private Reserve Management and Farm Watch as well as LEDET (Limpopo Department of Economic Development, Environment and Tourism).
Air-Force
Hoedspruit enjoys the privilege of having an air-force base in the center which allows us the use of their facilities and which helps limit the functionality of airborne incursions by poachers.
Anti-Poaching
ProTrack is the first leading and private anti-poaching unit in the country who have an excellent working relationship with the local police and community. They are on permanent response, and provide security and anti-poaching.
Farm Watch
A well established community watch program which operates with the SAPS, monitoring crime activity, Farm Watch are one of the reasons the Hoedpsruit Police Department are known as the most effective in our region.
The Kruger National Park’s anti-poaching units’ willingness to help with any anti-poaching efforts is encouraging. The combined efforts of the The Rhino Revolution Action Group, Police, Military, Farm Watch, Protrack and Kruger National Park Anti-poaching Unit together form a powerful and experienced team.
The commitment and enthusiasm that has been shown by each and every individual and organization approached is very encouraging and motivates us further to fight this scourge.