Konica Minolta South Africa helps nurture orphaned rhinos

No doubt you have all been eagerly awaiting our latest rhino-related news…. Well, this is worth the wait and HOT off the press – we are delighted to inform you that Konica Minolta South Africa has adopted seven orphaned baby rhinos, currently being cared for and safeguarded at a rhino sanctuary.

This comes ten months after we announced our ‘New Equation in Conservation’ and the opening of the bizhub Conservation Academy in
Hazyview, Mpumalanga, in conjunction with our CSI partner, Good Work Foundation (GWF). As a practical extension of the bizhub
Conservation Academy’s theory based learning, we have now also entered into a partnership with Care for Wild Africa, an incredible sanctuary that rescues abandoned, injured and orphaned infant rhinos, providing the facilities and necessary expertise to stabilise and rehabilitate these animals so that they might later be released back into the wild.

As part of the adoption of our seven orphaned rhinos, Konica Minolta South Africa will now be covering all maintenance costs relating to food,
shelter and medication for these majestic animals in need. The company will continue to contribute a percentage of every bizhub sold to this exciting new initiative.

In addition to caring for rhinos, another exciting aspect to this announcement is that adult students from the bizhub Conservation Academy who are enrolled in a specialist wildlife security course, will now be able to spend an internship at Care for Wild, receiving tuition in animal husbandry, data collection and monitoring. The sanctuary will also be made available to rural schoolchildren who, as part of the bizhub
Conservation Academy syllabus, enjoy field trips to conservation areas and wild life protection projects.

Once the sanctuary’s orphaned rhinos have reached sub adult age, they will either be:

• released into a breeding project on a farm adjoining Care for Wild rhino sanctuary, or
• released onto community-owned land that adjoins the greater Kruger National Park

In both cases – and wherever possible – graduates of the bizhub Conservation Academy will be employed as rhino monitors and
data capturers.

Whilst we are exceptionally proud to be able to contribute to the rehabilitation and ultimately the release of these orphaned rhino, what Konica Minolta South Africa is most proud of is our commitment to a strategic South African project that includes education as well as conservation.