- Location: South East Lowveld, Zimbabwe
- Founded: TBD
- Species: Black rhinos and white rhinos
What is the Lowveld Rhino Trust?
Lowveld Rhino Trust is a charity and non-governmental organization (NGO) dedicated to the protection and conservation of rhinos in the Lowveld region of South Africa. It is one of the notable international rhino foundations that monitors rhinos.
Rhinos have been living on Earth for 34 million years, yet today, they are critically endangered, threatened by rhino poaching in Africa, and inadequate resources allocated for their management.
Lowveld Rhino Trust is working to conserve and monitor rhinos through undertaking to provide effective protection, monitoring, and education.
The organization, along with the Lowveld National Park, Lowveld Conservancy, and affiliated landowners in the Lowveld, has ensured significant strides towards achieving greater rhino conservation success in the region and the whole country.
See Related: Best Wildlife Conservation Jobs
Projects
Lowveld Rhino Trust protects and translocates rhinos by transferring them from high-risk locations, tracking and monitoring them in the field, and treating rhino wounds from snares and bullets.
The trust protects rhinos, assists the local authorities with prosecuting poachers who kill these wonderful creatures and engages the local communities in their conservation work of white and black rhinos.
Lowveld Rhino Trust is a nonprofit organization that rehabilitates poached Lowveld Rhinos. They also work to reduce the demand for rhino horns through on-the-ground education programs for local communities to combat poaching.
This project helped to prevent organized illegal groups of poachers slaughtered approximately a quarter of the country’s rhinos between 2007 and 2009.
Lowveld Rhino Trust is committed to the rhino conservation of Lowveld wildlife, and our work focuses on white and black rhinos, Lowland Gorillas, giraffes, Zebra, and Wild Dogs.
See Related: Animals That Start With X
Rhino Conservation Efforts
Lowveld Rhino Trust conserves lowveld rhinos in the Lowveld region of South Africa. The white and black rhino, some endemic to Lowveld’s fragmented woodlands, was experiencing major population declines due to a lack of breeding opportunities—when LRT began its efforts in 2008, it had been 12 years since a female rhino calf was born.
With the support of donor partners and years of treating and monitoring rhinos, LRT has created protected zones across more than 8,000 hectares along the Olifants River that are repopulated with up to 200 Lowveld rhinos through translocation.
The Lowveld Conservancy is home to nearly 500 rhinos, hundreds of elephants, and many other species that have been reintroduced back into the Lowveld. It is one of five conservancies in the Lowveld that provide critical conservation services in the Lowveld Rhino Management Areas.
Lowveld Conservancies are members of Lowveld Wildlife Trust, a coalition of private landowners in Lowveld committed to working together with government entities and other stakeholders to conserve wildlife and habitats for future generations in Lowveld Rhino Management Area.
The objective is to establish Lowvell as a Lowveld rhino sanctuary, a breeding herd, and an insurance population of rhinos.
Lowveld Rhino Trust has strong links with government conservation authorities and other non-governmental organizations to increase its effectiveness in the rhino protection program. It is a member of the World Wide Fund.
See Related: Best Books on Endangered Species
Why do Rhinos need our help?
Rhinos are threatened by illegal hunting, urban development pressure on natural habitats, grazing competition with livestock (particularly around protected areas), habitat destruction by mining activities, and poisoning authorized for control of crop-raiding wildlife.
While poachers kill these animals by inflicting snares and bullet wounds, rhinos must relocate to safer locations or protected wildlife management areas to survive.
There is also increasing demand within the East Asian traditional medicine market and the insatiable demand for rhino horn by the consumer market in Vietnam and China.
Lowveld Rhino Trust has partnered with Lowveld Conservation Services (LCS) to establish an aerial surveillance system over South Africa’s Lowveld region, home to about 95% of this subspecies’ population. Rhinos are on the verge of extinction, which needs to be addressed.
Lowveld Rhino Trust works with communities and stakeholders by providing information about rhino poaching, poaching-related issues, and how you can help rhinos in Lowveld.
The Trust has already achieved many things: it has created awareness among communities and stakeholders about rhino poaching and how they can help.
See Related: Best Conservation Posters
Where can I donate to help rhinos?
Rhinos need help because they are on the verge of going extinct. Thus, Lowveld Rhino Trust is a nonprofit organization established to save the rhino population—one of Africa’s great white hopes for conservation success. Their mission is to create a Lowveld where rhinos feel safe as individuals and species, but we cannot do this alone.
The Trust also allows individuals to become sponsors, which helps them raise funds for projects such as Lowveld Rhino Reserve, Lowveld Rhino Trust Annual Sponsor Auction, and Lowveld Rhino Trust Adopt-A-Rhino Program.
See Related: How Do Animals Adapt to Their Environment?
How to help
If you want to support the work of Lowveld Rhino Trust to protect endangered rhinos in Zimbabwe, click on the donate button and go to their website.
Related Resources