I can remember a time at Rockwood when I
was still farming with cattle and sheep and goats
where I sat outside at night
and you know looking at the Stars
hearing the sheep and the goats and you know
thinking this could have been so much
better if we had wild animals here again
that's that's where the the wild life or
reintroducing wild life here has started I
was always drawn to say exotic animals
like Rhino I didn't grow up in an area
where Rhino was natural or what I
perceived to be natural they were hunted
to extinction in that part of the world
100 years ago
my name is Wicus Diedericks I grew up
on a farm in the Northern Cape South
Africa
[Music]
my first memory of the great outdoors or
nature is basically on the farm at night
hearing the Jackals far in the
distance I reckon that's where my
passion for for nature started
in 2013 when I bought this land I decided to do
something different it was always this
romantic beast that I never saw
I think only about a month before I got
the first Rhino translocated here I
actually saw the first live Rhino and
it was unbelievable you know that that
first encounter the feelings it sort of
provoked inside of me and since then I
fell in love with the animals and now
it's I reckon it's my greatest passion
so here at Rockwood our primary focus is
conservation and the general well-being
of our animals it takes quite a lot of
effort to protect them we have a call it
aggressive strategy to keep them
maybe in smaller areas where we can
protect them better where we can
intensify our efforts but not only that
we feel very strongly about education
and and also about research it's it's
very important that we that we learn
about the species it's such an iconic
species but yet there's so little
literature especially when it comes to
keeping them in more intensive
operations like we're doing here
in July of 2014
my whole life changed the first Rhino
was poached here at Rockwood and it was
a very very emotional experience
it was the first Rhino poached in the
whole of the Northern Cape province and
you know standing next to that animal
after you know embracing that animal
caring for it and to see you know how it
was butchered really touched me and you
know it just made me realize that that
if I don't start making a difference and
you know not just by talking but really
making a difference
really
changing what is happening at the moment
we're not going to win this fight
[Music]
training is very important not one of
the ranges comes from a military or a
traditional nature conservation
background it's all they were all
unemployed people from the vicinity that
we trained so they there's a lot of
effort went into that but we also get a
lot of return from that because they're
absolutely passionate about what they're
doing and Rockwood has become their
family and I think that's going to be
our success in total there's about 50
people working here full-time you know
you can imagine just feeding everybody
taking care of all the workers here
takes quite some effort and then the
routine tasks we are a semi desert area
and in the past a couple of years we had
far below our normal rainfall and then
we have to feed our animals to get them
to survive
so our tagline at Rockwood is live for a change
and it's obviously because we
want to make a change in the world we
live in but also to live for a change
and to enjoy what we're doing and to
feel good about what you're doing and to
leave something behind of what you can
be proud of
when you get so close to Rhino and you
you look in their eyes you see a certain
vulnerability I don't know they almost
look sad to me in a sense you know it's
it's these big majestic animals almost
with sorrow in their hearts and it's it's
unbelievable how you could actually see
that in their eyes that's the irony
about Rhino they’re such big majestic
animals but yet they're so vulnerable
they've been around for longer that then
humans have been around and yet if we
don't act in our lifetimes
they will be extinct
Rhino is almost a metaphor for for
what's happening on earth if we don't
get this right
there is going to be a lot of other
things with much worse consequences that
we're also not going to get right we
need to see the social aspect in conservation
conservation cannot happen
without social upliftment and I'd always
say integration with humans
in South Africa we've got a very successful model
because we can own wildlife and
therefore wildlife has a valley
if we achieve what we set out to achieve
and grow our numbers of Rhino we will
have the nice dilemma of having to
relocate them to new areas and it will
be wonderful to move Rhino into
areas where they've gone extinct and
wouldn't it be nice not to save the
Rhino