Saving private rhinos

After a successful career in the mining industry, BGS Old Boy Allan Davies ’69 and his wife Lyn established a charitable foundation in 2007 to support projects they found interesting. Now worth several million dollars, the Dalara Foundation donated $400,000 to various worthy causes last year alone.

Given Allan grew up in Mount Isa, and he and Lyn spent years living and working in regional Australia, it’s unsurprising many of Dalara’s funded projects benefit country people and communities.

Dalara’s beneficiaries include scholarships for veterinary, agriculture, and engineering students; training for rural midwives through the Royal Flying Doctor Service; and research into stroke prevention and Hendra virus. Dalara was also a generous supporter of The Lilley Centre’s construction at BGS.

Education remains an ongoing focus. “We’re really keen on a not-for-profit group called the Clontarf Foundation, which focuses on education for Aboriginal boys,” Allan says. “We feel really passionate about education because it’s the fundamental building block for any society to continue to improve itself. There are so many things that could be fixed if people were better educated.”

To this end, Allan would like to see the 1969 Year Level Bursary grow. “I think bursaries are a fantastic way to assist the philanthropic effort at BGS. I’m keen to do something with the other guys in my year who are like-minded.”

Having enjoyed his time as a boarder at BGS, Allan has been a generous donor to the School. Perhaps more surprising is his interest in saving the African white rhino.

Allan says working and travelling through South Africa in the 1970s gave him an enduring appreciation for African wildlife and social issues. “Apartheid was in place, and we travelled around the country and saw a lot of things that affected us. It has some bearing on the philanthropy we do today.”

When Allan was asked to get involved in the conservation of the wild rhino population about 10 years ago, he was intrigued, and the Australian Rhino Project was born.

As co-founder and Chair, Allan is involved in the logistics of importing 35 rhinos to Australian zoos to provide a genetically diverse ‘insurance population’ for a species the world could lose forever.

The World Wildlife Fund estimates only 20,000 African white rhinos remain in the wild, with 80% in South Africa. South Africa’s famed Kruger National Park has seen a decline in rhino numbers of 63% in the last decade due to increasingly sophisticated poaching.

Rhino horn, known as ‘grey gold’, is highly sought after in China and Vietnam, where a strong belief of the magical properties of rhino horn persists. Although it is keratin, the same as human fingernails, it has become a status symbol gifted to strengthen business relationships. Criminal gangs hire poachers to satisfy this lucrative market.

“We’ve reached a tipping point where more rhinos are killed than are born, and extinction is a possibility,” Allan says. “The idea is to grow the population here in Australia where they’re safe from poaching, and eventually return them to the wild if conditions in Africa permit.”

The Rhino Project has partnered with Thaba Manzi Wildlife Sanctuary in South Africa, Orana Wildlife Park, Taronga Conservation Society and the Royal Zoological Society of South Australia to ensure the animals’ wellbeing. Allan says the process has been complicated by COVID. “None of this is easy. Each animal can weigh up to two tonnes, so it’s no wonder a group of rhinos is called a crash!”

The Rhino Project hopes to move the first crash of 10 to a purpose-built enclosure in New Zealand later this year, where they’ll quarantine for 12 months before being moved to South Australia’s Monarto Zoo. Monarto is currently working on a 1500-acre Wild Africa facility that will transform the zoo into the largest safari park outside of Africa.

In the meantime, Allan and Lyn, together with their two sons and daughters-in-law, work as a committee to find future projects for Dalara to support.

“We’ve been very fortunate. It’s not by accident, it’s because of hard work and taking the opportunities as they’ve arisen, but I think it’s really important to give back, and we’re trying to inculcate that approach to life in our children and their families.”