The hunter of rhino poachers, Dr Div de Villiers, 62, arrives in a bakkie loaded with boxes of his latest book.
IziNdlovu: The Story of South Africa’s greatest rhino poaching case, is co-authored by leading Eastern Cape legal journalist and senior Daily Dispatch writer Adrienne Carlisle.
So, to keep the books safe, the interview is conducted on the grassy pavement working off a wonky camping table and chairs next to his bakkie with the ocean susurrating down the road.
His sparky Jack Russel-pavement special dog, Tix, the famous dog, is looking at us from the passenger seat.
De Villiers is under the pump, the book is flying whenever he stands up to address audiences, such as the intimate and soulful 2-12th Avenue house concert venue in Gonubie on Friday night, where he sold 15 copies to local live music lovers after being invited by organiser and musician Dalena Mostert to give a short introduction.
He moved on to Gqeberha’s Bayworld on December 3, and on Tuesday, December 9 he is in East London at the Nahoon Estuary Nature Reserve at 5.30pm.
In typical De Villiers style, the New Voices published-176 pager is penned in a pleasing mix of frank and local style and Carlisle’s incisive and riveting court reporting insights. The bookshop price is around R350.
The Ndolvu poacher gang led a six-year murderous charge from 2010 to 2016 against provincial rhinos taking down 13 in 10 “incidents” in which they used large rifles and tranquiliser darts. De Villiers believes they were responsible for many more attacks in which the nerve-rich rhino horns were hacked off while the creatures were still alive.
As the horror and outrage grew, De Villiers, then appointed to start the Green Scorpions in the provincial department of economic development, environmental affairs and tourism (Dedeat), used his position as head of the Eastern Cape environmental crime working group to bring together all government units who were investigating the rhino cases.
In effect, he co-ordinated the counter drive to bring down the Ndlovu gang.
De Villiers, director of compliance and enforcement at Dedeat, drew together leading investigator Capt Mornay Coetzee, senior prosecutor advocate Buks Coetzee, SAPs officers, especially stock theft units, the Hawks, SanParks, and private game reserves, especially around Makana.
The dramatic arrest and trial is graphically recorded by the authors, but De Villiers said he was staggered at the amount of public interest which flooded the zone.
A march at the height of the trial drew thousands who marched down High Street to the high courts.
“I only expected a handful,” said the tall, tank-like conservator known for his bushy beard and smart conservation khakis.
He and Carlisle connected through the court case and he suggested the writing partnership.
A year and a half later, the book, with its dark, muted cover showing protests and the outline of a mutilated rhino, is out.
The trial focused on the gang’s final incident in June 2016 when the Ndlovus, who were not brothers, killed Campbell, a massive bull on Bucklands Game Reserve within the Great Fish River Game Reserve complex.
They were jailed in 2018, leading to a sudden collapse of rhino poaching in the Eastern Cape.
But more will come, De Villiers said, pointing to the arrest, trial and jailing of the Chitiya gang in 2023, after they used .375 calibre elephant guns to slay 23 rhinos.
This is De Villiers’ fifth published work, some co-authored others solo efforts covering a swathe of topics from his own personal life story as a ranger, this year’s A Field Ranger’s Handbook with Ken Coetzee and Wallie Stroebel, and two editions of Mkambati and the Wild Coast with the late and legendary Port St Johns photographer and NSRI commander John Costello.
De Villiers says he is deeply concerned about the decline of state funding for conservation, but specifically for law enforcement. His old department — he retired three years ago at 60 — has had to work with less money every year.
He remains deeply upset about the statement during the 2018 anti-poaching protest march to the Ndlovu trial by one of the frontline marchers, the then-department of economic development, environmental affairs and tourism MEC, Oscar Mabuyane, who is shown in a photograph in the book standing up and close to the main banner proclaiming the protection of rhino was an act of protecting our heritage.
Mabuyane had said more money would be set aside for conservation and environmental law enforcement.
He rose to become premier, but his promises of more money, turned out to be the opposite. — Off Track
