Protect The Strongholds

For fourteen years, Kariega had not lost a rhino to poaching.

That progress was hard won. Now it must be defended.

For the next 14 days, we are asking you to help strengthen rhino protection across the Eastern Cape Strongholds.

Donate to Protect the Strongholds

Fourteen years of progress

Kariega is where the story of Helping Rhinos began.

Fourteen years ago, after a horrific poaching attack, we stood beside Thandi – a rhino who survived against extraordinary odds.

What happened at Kariega helped shape everything that followed.

Since then, conservation teams, communities, landowners, donors and partners have worked together to make these landscapes safer for rhinos.

Rhinos have survived and bred. Thandi is a great grandmother and her legacy thrives.

Habitat has been protected.

Communities have invested in conservation.

Strongholds have been built.

The killing of this mother and calf does not erase that progress.

But it shows how fiercely that progress must now be defended.

The threat has changed

Criminal networks adapt. Their methods change. Their intelligence changes. The risks they are willing to take change.

Protection must evolve too.

That means identifying threats earlier, sharing intelligence faster and making sure the right resources can be deployed when and where they are needed.

Waiting until after another loss is not an option.

What your gift will strengthen

Rapid response

Strengthen the capacity to act quickly, treat injury and deploy essential units for translocation.

Aerial capability

Supporting aircraft hours where they can improve surveillance, deployment and response.

Adaptive technology

Testing and deploying technology that can help teams detect and respond to changing threats.

Collaboration across Strongholds

Helping partners share intelligence, experience and resources so that a threat identified in one landscape can strengthen protection across others.

The exact response must be led by the people operating on the ground.

Together we will provide the resources and flexibility to act.

PROTECT THE STRONGHOLDS — GIVE NOW

We cannot change what happened. We can help shape what happens next.

A mother and her calf are already gone.

Behind them stand years of conservation work, people protecting wildlife, restoring landscapes, creating local opportunity and building places where rhinos can survive and breed.

We made a commitment to stand alongside them.

We are not stopping now.

Help strengthen the capacity to detect emerging threats, disrupt those behind them and respond before another rhino is lost.

If you would like to give by bank transfer, discuss a larger donation, or speak to us about another way to support Protect the Strongholds, please contact [email protected].

Fund designation

Protect the Strongholds is a restricted fundraising appeal supporting Helping Rhinos’ Strongholds programme across CLI, ARCC and Kariega.

Funds raised through this appeal will be used to strengthen rhino protection through the Strongholds programme across these partner landscapes according to operational need.