“We were walking for so long in the rocks and the heat,” sighs Simson, “but we only saw the animal for two seconds.”
Although fleeting, the sighting made a lasting impression on the Duke of Cambridge, who this evening awarded Simson with the 2021 Prince William Award for Conservation in Africa, a lifetime achievement award presented at an intimate ceremony at London’s BFI.
The first black African CEO of Save The Rhino Trust, Simson has played a major role in conserving Africa’s largest free-roaming population of black rhino. Patrolling 25,000sq km of unfenced land in the Kunene region right up to the Angolan border, his team have worked with communities to reduce poaching. Between 2017-2020, none of the desert-adapted subspecies were lost. (In the two years prior, 30 were killed.)
The only lapse occurred during the pandemic – a consequence of Covid. One of the animals lost, ironically, was the very same rhino Prince William had tracked.
“He was sad when he heard the news,” says Simson. “He will always be sad if he hears a rhino has been poached.”
One of Simson’s greatest tools for safeguarding the species has been tourism. His team has trained community guardians under a Rhino Ranger Programme and set up the Desert Rhino Camp in partnership with the Tora, Sesfontein and Anabeb conservancies. Managed by Wilderness Safaris, the camp is currently under renovation, with all activities temporarily based at the neighbouring Damaraland Camp.
The projects have been so successful, other conservancies have requested rhino to be translocated to their land.
“Because of tourism, people see value in this wildlife,” says Simson, whose strong leadership skills have rallied hundreds behind him.
A former welder employed to fix vehicles for SRT, he worked his way up from a grassroots level and has fought both racial prejudice and academic snobbery to reach his position.
Thicker skinned than a rhino, he brushes any disparagement aside. His passion for this species is too great.
“It’s not always that you see a rhino; there aren’t that many around,” he explains, reflecting on a lifelong fascination. “But you know God graced them to be here on Earth.”
Simson Uri-Khob is this year’s winner of the Prince William Award for Conservation in Africa, sponsored by Ninety One. Julie Razafimanhaka won the Tusk Award for Conservation in Africa for her work protecting the forests of Madagascar and Suleiman Sadu was the winner of this year’s Tusk Wildlife Ranger Award for his work protecting elephants in Nigeria’s national parks.
For more information, see tusk.org.
