Olive Farm Helps Save Rhinos

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Multi award-win­ning South African olive oil Rio Largo Olive Estate is con­tribut­ing to sav­ing endan­gered rhi­nos with their two rhino labels of which a per­cent­age of the sales will be appor­tioned to this cause.

Organizations ben­e­fit­ting from a per­cent­age of the sales of Rio Largo’s rhino labels oils are South African-based Saving the Survivors and Rhino Revolution.

Rio Largo reg­u­larly cre­ates inno­v­a­tive con­tain­ers and labels for their oils, as well as per­son­al­ized labels on request. Brenda Wilkinson, who co-owns Rio Largo with her hus­band Nick, told Olive Oil Times they have more than twenty dif­fer­ent labels for their oils.

Rio Largo’s web­site states their labels are fast becom­ing collector’s items.

Wilkinson said she and her hus­band were asked about cre­at­ing a label to save rhi­nos by vol­un­teer rhino ambas­sador Sue Brown, whom they met while dis­play­ing their oils with per­son­al­ized labels at a local mar­ket.

“We were hes­i­tant at first,” Wilkinson said, ​“as we felt that this needed to have a focused bud­get, and how would we work this?”

She also pointed out it isn’t easy to find projects where small injec­tions of funds are able to be used with effect ​“but there is always a way we can help.”

“We needed the project to have integrity and for the money to be used wisely,” she said, ​“but Sue guided us and we were soon on our way with fab­u­lous designs to cre­ate aware­ness.”

Besides being prompted by Brown, the Wilkinsons are pas­sion­ate about wildlife. They lived in Central Africa for over twenty years before they bought Rio Largo in 2010, and they visit game lodges when­ever pos­si­ble.

“You never for­get the feel­ing of awe after you have been in the quiet of the open Bushveld and wit­nessed these beau­ti­ful ani­mals in their nat­ural habi­tat,” said Wilkinson.

The Wilkinsons had the two rhino labels for their on-tap decanters designed by South African artists Frans Groenewald and Caryl Laurenson respec­tively.

The rhino labels are avail­able in South Africa only, but Wilkinson said they are work­ing with a com­pany in the UK to cre­ate bot­tle sleeves with one of Rio Largo’s rhino designs. She said the dis­trib­u­tor there also fell in love with the idea of shar­ing a prod­uct with so many health ben­e­fits to mankind, to save rhi­nos.

“It is a great fit,” Wilkinson said.

She expressed opti­mism for the future of rhi­nos based on wide­spread edu­ca­tion on the issue and increased mea­sures to keep rhi­nos safe. Those mea­sures have resulted in a slow decline in rhino poach­ing.

Rhinos are crit­i­cally endan­gered, with between 5,000 and 5,400 remain­ing glob­ally accord­ing to WWF.

An arti­cle on savetherhino.org, explained Rhinos are killed for their horns that are used in tra­di­tional Chinese and Vietnamese med­i­cine.

Saving the Survivors, a ben­e­fi­ciary of the Rio Largo rhino labels, are a field-based South African NPO car­ing for and res­cu­ing threat­ened and endan­gered wildlife species. They also focus on rhino research and edu­cat­ing local com­mu­ni­ties.

Saving the Survivors project coor­di­na­tor Tersia Jooste said: ​“Saving the Survivors can­not attend to injured endan­gered wildlife with­out the gen­eros­ity of our many sup­port­ers world­wide. Every sin­gle one of them makes a con­sid­er­able dif­fer­ence in our lives and, more impor­tantly, the lives of our endan­gered species. Your sup­port is crit­i­cal to help­ing us achieve our con­ser­va­tion goals.”

Jooste said Saving the Survivors tended to over thirty injured rhi­nos in South Africa and neigh­bor­ing Mozambique over the past year.

Rhino Revolution — the other ben­e­fi­ciary of Rio Largo’s rhino labels — is an NPO that reha­bil­i­tates orphaned rhino calves for release back into the wild, imple­ments anti-poach­ing mea­sures in pri­vate reserves and edu­cates and inspires the youth of impov­er­ished local com­mu­ni­ties.

“We are very proud that we suc­cess­fully released our first five orphan­age rhino calves back into the wild at the end of 2017,” said Rhino Revolution spokesper­son Harriet Nimmo.

• Rio Largo


• World Wide Fund for Nature


• Save the Rhino