From the brink of extinction to one of Africa’s great conservation comebacks
At the start of the 1970s, roughly 65,000 black rhinos still moved across the savannas and deserts of Africa. Within two decades, that number had collapsed. Driven by an insatiable demand for rhino horn — carved into dagger handles in the Middle East and ground into traditional medicine in Asia — poaching wiped out the vast majority of the continent’s black rhinos. By the mid-1990s, fewer than 2,500 remained. It was one of the most catastrophic wildlife declines of the twentieth century.
Namibia sat at the heart of that crisis. And, remarkably, it also became the place where the story began to turn.
The Kunene, on the edge of losing everything
In the far north-west of Namibia lies the Kunene Region — a vast, rugged, largely waterless wilderness of the Damaraland and Kaokoland landscapes. It is home to something found nowhere else: the desert-adapted south-western black rhino (Diceros bicornis bicornis), an animal tough enough to go for days without drinking and to feed on the toxic Damara milk-bush that would poison most other browsers. These rhinos have roamed here for millennia; they appear in the region’s ancient rock art.
By the early 1980s, they were almost gone. Prolonged drought combined with relentless, unchecked poaching to devastate the Kunene’s wildlife. There were no anti-poaching patrols and very little was even known about the animals that remained. By 1982, fewer than 50 desert-adapted black rhinos were thought to survive across the entire region — fewer than 40 in Damaraland and fewer than 10 in Kaokoland to the north. Carcasses were being found with their horns hacked away.
The species was, quite simply, about to disappear from one of the last truly wild places on Earth.
One artist, a Land Rover, and a refusal to give up
In 1982 — before Namibia had even gained its independence — a botanical artist and passionate conservationist named Blythe Loutit, together with Ina Britz and a small circle of like-minded Namibians, resolved to do something about it. From these humble beginnings, Save the Rhino Trust (SRT) was born.
There was almost no money. Loutit funded the first monitoring patrols largely by selling her own artwork and using her private Land Rover to reach the remote areas where the last rhinos survived. What she and her small team built, however, would prove far more valuable than any budget.
Their approach was radically different from the fortress-style conservation of the time. Rather than trying to police the vast landscape from the outside, they hired respected local people — including some who had themselves been poachers — and employed them as trackers and community game guards. The people who knew the land best, and who lived alongside the rhinos, were given both a livelihood and a genuine stake in protecting them.
By 1986, SRT was supporting three tracking teams and ten community game guards, and had established a systematic monitoring programme. Crucially, the team began building a photographic and life-history record of every individual rhino they found — a database that has since grown into the longest-running black rhino monitoring record in Africa.
A model that changed conservation across Namibia
The idea that wildlife has value, and that local communities should share in that value, spread far beyond the rhino. The community game-guard system pioneered in the Kunene became a foundation stone of Namibia’s now world-renowned communal conservancy movement — a model in which local people manage and benefit from the wildlife on their land.
Namibia went further than almost anywhere else. In 1993, as black rhino numbers across Africa hit their lowest point, the country launched its Black Rhino Custodianship Programme, allowing rhinos to be held on private and, later, communal land under formal agreement with the state — extending safe habitat well beyond national parks. In 2005 the programme expanded into communal conservancies, and in 2012 the Rhino Ranger initiative began training and equipping community members to monitor and protect the animals directly. Today around 60 rhino rangers operate across 13 conservancies, and the ranks now include women as well as men.
One ranger, Mensley Karutjaiva of the Torra Conservancy, has said he does the work so that future generations can see a real rhino — not just a drawing. That sentiment captures the whole philosophy: conservation owned by the people who live closest to it.
Where the black rhino stands today
The turnaround has been hard-won, and it is real. According to the 2025 IUCN and TRAFFIC assessment, Africa was home to an estimated 6,788 black rhinos at the end of 2024 — an increase of 5.2% on the previous year. Continental poaching has fallen to its lowest level in more than a decade.
Namibia’s role in that recovery is extraordinary. The country now holds the largest population of black rhinos on the planet, and the desert-adapted rhinos of the Kunene remain the only truly wild, free-ranging black rhino population left in the world — living on open, unfenced communal land, outside the boundaries of any national park.
But the black rhino is still classified as Critically Endangered, and the threats have not gone away. Organised criminal networks continue to target rhinos for their horn, drought remains a constant pressure on this arid landscape, and even a handful of losses can be devastating to small populations. As conservationists repeatedly warn, this is no time to drop our guard.
Save the Rhino Trust continues its patrols across the Kunene to this day — on foot, by vehicle, by air, and even by camel — protecting not only the rhino but the desert lions, elephants and giraffes that share its range.
Why this story matters to us
With our founder, Dr Nick Buys, being involved in conservation work in the wildlife veterinary field over the years, this is a cause that is very close to our hearts. It is our passion to tell the story to our clients by giving them the opportunity to track these beautiful animals on a conservation experience and to learn more about their behaviour in their natural habitat. Damaraland is one of our favourite destinations in Namibia, telling the story of survival and how animals evolved to adapt to these unique, harsh conditions. When you join a Rhino Walking experience, a portion of your travel fee will be donated towards the conservation of the black rhino in Namibia.
Every journey into Namibia’s wild north-west is more than a safari. It is part of the reason these ancient animals are still here at all — and part of the reason they will still be here for the generations who come after us.
Sources for verification (link these or check before publishing):
- IUCN & TRAFFIC, African and Asian Rhinoceroses – Status, Conservation and Trade (2025) — for all current population and status figures
- Save the Rhino Trust Namibia (savetherhinotrust.org) — for the organisation’s founding and history
- IUCN Red List of Threatened Species — for the black rhino’s Critically Endangered classification
- Photo credit for original photos to C Brits.
Note: rhino population figures are reassessed periodically.