The Kruger is a beast.
The words of a hardened soldier accustomed to death and conflict who cried when rhinos in the Kruger National Park were maimed or killed for their horns.
In 2012, Johan Jooste was 60, retired from the army where he had served as a major-general and ready for a new adventure.
He had already undergone the transformation from an army officer to a businessman when he was approached to fight an almost impossible war: rhino poaching.
The new role would mean reinventing himself all over again and adopting a less than comfortable life in the Kruger National Park with his wife, Arina.
It would also mean that Arina would suffer massive heartache because after years of moving around as an army wife and having prepared themselves to settle down to a more peaceful existence, they would have to live in the Kruger National Park and she would have to give up her dog.
“Is this what you really want to do at the age of 60?” Jooste asked himself.
He was up for the challenge and soon afterwards he was “parachuted” into the job by David Mabunda, the head of SANParks, the body responsible for managing South Africa’s national parks.
Speaking in his personal capacity, Jooste told the “Independent on Saturday” it was an incredibly emotional experience.
He said “one would have to have a hole in your soul” not to be moved by what was happening.
“It was the biggest challenge of my life. I exited the army as a two-star general. I served in an international company as a director and I’ve never had a challenge like that.”
He said the naked truth showed the “barbarity and seemingly endless plundering” of the rhino. He couldn’t understand why the demand for the horn was so high and that the animal had to be killed.
Jooste’s experience resulted in him penning a book, “Rhino War: A General’s Bold Strategy in the Kruger National Park”.
The 283-page book written with Tony Park is an honest but heart-wrenching account of his time in the Kruger and how he managed to win over the rangers and turn them into a formidable force.
Jooste speaks about the “savage losses” suffered, how he could not comprehend why the animal’s horn was turned into nothing more than a commodity and why they had to be killed.
When Jooste’s appointment was made public it raised eyebrows: here was an older white man, who had served in the army for 35 years, much of it under apartheid.
Coupled with the media hype, the stakes were high.
Mabunda told people the ranger corps in the Kruger would “go military” to fight rhino poaching.
Jooste started by establishing clear lines of command and control in a Joint Operations Centre.
By the second month, he faced a huge test of character: the expectation had been that “the general will sort it out” but he had to tell those in charge that the mission could not be accomplished in months.
“That was very hard, it was difficult… because good generals are those who win.”
He said the whole world from China to Washington to Europe knew he had been appointed to stop rhino poaching and he had to admit to everyone and to himself that even though he had put building blocks in place to turn things around, it was not happening.
He also had to win over the rangers as an “untested newcomer” and work with those who felt they should have been in that job.
The old way of doing things had to change and Jooste’s military experience came to the fore as he insisted on discipline.
“I set the pace and it was an uncomfortable pace.”
He said there was no compromise on standards.
In the book he concedes there were times when he could have been more patient. However, they were constantly racing against the clock.
“You count the days and you count the carcasses…”
At one stage he analysed himself and wondered if he was too strict a disciplinarian for the rather informal environment.
To those who say it’s just a rhino, Jooste says it’s much more than that.
“I can honestly say foremost in our minds was the asset. This animal of prehistoric origin in this iconic park. How can we allow it to happen to this animal and how can we allow it to happen to this park?” He says the underlying motive and emotion were almost tangible and that carried them.
“We lost a lot of rhino but we also saved a lot of rhino. The fact that that corps of men and women stuck to it I will always appreciate and I think they deserve the recognition for it.”
Even though he pushed everyone beyond their limits, early on he could see who had potential.
Jooste said in mid-2013 he realised they were establishing one of the best anti-poaching units on the continent.
He said the rangers were back in uniform, well trained, and although the day-to-day tasks were hard, they stuck to the challenge.
Stories about poachers kitted out with prime technology and helicopters are not true: most of them live around the Kruger, on the South African and Mozambican sides, said Jooste.
They were usually recruited in groups of three and sent in to poach. The money they received changed their lives, although it was very little compared with the international traders.
“The root cause of poaching is supply and demand. It’s money,” he said.
He said usually the poachers wore tattered clothes, second-hand North Star takkies and sometimes had a rucksack and a tin of fish.
For their efforts they earned anything from R100 000 handed to them in a supermarket packet.
Their only fallback was the skin draped around them that they got from a sangoma and which was supposed to make them invisible, said Jooste.
In the book he writes that “Poachers, like everyone else I learned, need extra money at Christmas time, so there was traditionally a spike in activity in December…”
Jooste is still operationally linked to the park in an administrative role, but no longer based there.
- “Rhino War” is published by Pan Macmillan South Africa and is available at leading bookstores.
The Independent on Saturday