Ban Rhino horn in chinese medicine

In less than a quarter of a century, between 1970 and 1994, sub-Saharan Africa lost 95 per cent of its black rhinos, and the wildlife trade was the major reason. Other species, like the Javan and Sumatran rhinos, are also in grave peril.

The prehistoric looking creatures, whose direct ancestors have lived on Earth for 40 million years, are killed for their horns. These have long been used in traditional oriental medicine to cool fever; not as an aphrodisiac, as popularly believed.

The demand for rhino horn increased greatly in the 1970s as young North Yemeni men, prosperous from working in Saudi Arabia during the oil boom, bought daggers with ornamental handles made of it: the price of the horn increased 21 times during the decade.

The trade has been illegal since 1977, but it still continues. Worldwide only 12,000 rhinos from five species  still survive, though the decline in black rhinos has eased in recent years.