
Last week The Howard G. Buffett Foundation donated $26 million to South Africa’s Kruger National Park as announced at the Rosebank office of Standard Bank - a bank which also announced its own support for the initiative by providing interest on the funds which they are to hold as well as favourable fees.

This National Park is currently home to 40% of the world's remaining rhinos. With a total popultation of just 22,000 animals remaining, this species is dangerously teetering on the extinct species ledge. In three years, there were 1,000 animals poached in South Africa alone. To make matters worse for this unique species, 172 have already been poached in the first three months of 2014. This means that over 15 animals have been poached each week so far this year.

The generous donation given to the park by Howard Buffett, son of billionaire investor Warren Buffett, will go directly towards fighting rhino poaching in the sanctuary as well as to test and implement new anti-poaching methods. This effort will lead to an Intensive Protection Zone (IPZ) in the park that will be able to use sophisticated detection and tracking equipment, elite canine unit, highly-trained ranger teams and improved intelligence.

These improvements will greatly help the park to improve their odds in this losing battle between rhinos and the poachers who hunt them.