China main reason Africa is losing war to stop wipe-out of rhinos and elephants

Michael Dyer looks a little awkward in a suit and tie. And no wonder. His usual garb is a safari suit, and his natural environment is the African bush where he runs Borana, an eco-resort and wildlife sanctuary located 200km north of Kenya's capital, Nairobi.

But Dyer, 53, has put on his suit for a good cause: saving the endangered rhinoceros.

Borana has been in his family for three generations. Although originally a conventional cattle ranch, it has evolved into a wildlife conservancy with a luxury eco-lodge under his management. And since last year, when Borana and Lewa, a neighbouring family-run conservancy that is also a Unesco World Heritage site, took down the fences between their properties to create Africa's largest rhino sanctuary, Dyer has found himself at the heart of its conservation battle.

In Hong Kong earlier this month to spread the word about rhino conservation, he had a grim message. The illegal wildlife trade has decimated populations in the wild in Africa. Just as elephants are hunted for their tusks, rhinos are being killed for their horns, which are mainly used in Asian folk medicine.

Years of poaching have reduced the numbers of the two African species - the white rhino and the black, or hook-lipped, rhino - to just an estimated 25,000 animals, driving them to the brink of extinction. The black rhino is particularly vulnerable: in the 1970s there were 70,000 black rhinos in Africa; today there are only about 3,000.

Poaching has reached "catastrophic levels", Dyer says, and the battle to save the rhinos will be lost unless there's a huge shift in the supply and demand.

(In 2011, WWF attributed a spike in poaching in Africa and South Asia primarily to increased demand for rhino horn in traditional medicine in Vietnam, where many believe powdered horn can cure cancer. Horns are also sent to the Middle East, where they are used to make handles for ornamental daggers.)