By Anna Mudeva AMSTERDAM, June 6 (Reuters) - The rise of organised criminal gangs trading in rhino horns has boosted poaching in some African countries, putting the endangered animals at risk, conservation groups and a U.N. wildlife pact said on Wednesday. Although international trade in rhino horns is banned to protect the species from extinction, many in Asia and the Middle East will pay high prices for the horns, considered a powerful medicine and aphrodisiac, as well as a status symbol. Increased demand for rhino horns from countries such as China and Yemen is driving the illegal trade in Africa, with Zimbabwe and Congo having the worst records in poaching and seizures of illegal shipments, wildlife trade monitor TRAFFIC and environmental group WWF said. "The situation in Congo and Zimbabwe is a particular concern," Steven Broad, executive director of TRAFFIC, said in a statement during a two-week meeting in The Hague of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES). "It tallies with an increase in the organisation of criminal horn-trading networks operating in Africa," Broad said. In Congo, 60 percent of the rhino population was illegally killed between 2003 and 2005, according to TRAFFIC data. In Zimbabwe, poaching accounted for two-thirds of all rhino deaths during the same period, affecting one in eight animals. Official Zimbabwe media reported last month that the country had started dehorning its rhinos in an effort to deter poaching. To address the problem, the 171-nation CITES pact to regulate wildlife trade called on Wednesday for better cross-boarder collaboration between countries along rhino horn smuggling routes and tougher domestic controls. The CITES parties also urged better management of horn stocks to prevent horns leaking into illegal markets. Relentless poaching in the 1970s and 1980s nearly drove the rhino to extinction. Black rhino numbers declined by a staggering 98 percent between 1970 and 1992, largely supplying the Far East medicine trade. Rhino populations overall have now stabilised, and are increasing in Africa, but some species remain threatened. "CITES is concerned that some rhinoceros populations have continued to decline drastically and that four of the five species are threatened with extinction," the pact said. The biggest danger remains horn demand and TRAFFIC noted a rise in illegal trade in 2000-2006, which it attributed to the increased sophistication with which some Southeast Asian criminal trading networks operate in Africa. Some of the criminal syndicates have links with other lucrative illegal trades, including abalone, ivory, live game and diamond smuggling, the group said. China is one of the main destinations for illegal rhino horns. The Chinese have historically used horns for various medical purposes such as reducing fever, but also to make horn buttons, belt buckles, hair pins and talismans. In Yemen, another major market, rhino horn daggers convey the high status of the owner.
