How the Rhino ute is helping save the rhino

Wednesday, 30 January 2019

 It has become quite the fashion of late for car companies to have 'brand ambassadors' - high profile people, usually with a large social media following, who will say nice things about their cars in return for a bit of sponsorship or a free car to drive around in for a while.

Sports stars, celebrity chefs, reality TV stars and, worst of all, 'social media influencers', it's all largely self-serving and somewhat cynical.

Jamie Joseph, however, is not your usual brand ambassador. And her arrangement with SsangYong New Zealand is anything but self-serving and cynical.

Outgoing, blonde and attractive, Joseph could easily come across as a social media influencer or celebrity blogger SsangYong dragged in to boost their profile among millenials and collect likes on social media, but the moment she starts talking about what she does, you realise there is something very different going on here.

**READ MORE:

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* How seeing rhinos may help save them

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Joseph is the founder of Saving the Wild, an organisation dedicated to saving the rhinoceros. But perhaps not in the way you might first think.

A traditional brand ambassador-type might be involved in raising money to tackle the issue of poaching, or simply raising the profile of the problem. But when you watch the video of Joseph on an anti poaching assignment, taking the poachers on directly and helping the badly wounded animals they leave behind, you realise she is somewhat more hands-on than that.

But even that isn't the real heart of what she does. Going after the poachers is fine, but won't stop the problem, she says. After all, if you take them down then more will just pop up in their place.

'You have to cut the head off,' she says. And she means it quite literally - Jamie Joseph and Saving the Wild go directly after the kingpins of the organised crime syndicates that run the poaching operations in South Africa, as well as the corrupt officials that protect them.

'My family emigrated to New Zealand a decade ago and I was living an idyllic ocean lifestyle in Mount Maunganui - everything was going great, life couldn't have been better,' says Joseph.

'Then the crisis escalated back in Africa and we were losing three rhinos a day. I had to go back. It wasn't something I thought about. It was just like 'I've got to go back. I've got to do this.''

That was five years ago and, since then, Saving the Wild has had a considerable impact on the rhino poaching criminal underworld, and the corrupt officials who profit from it.

'I'm not one of these touchy, feely conservationists who go to conferences around the world and is all just talk, talk, talk,' she says. 'I'm more stealth and elusive, like a leopard.'

'We run an intelligence network, and we also have a legal fund, because it's not enough to catch the syndicate bosses, they must be convicted and sentenced to jail - and the challenge we face is that they are very connected and have many magistrates and cops on their payroll, so it's a two-step process.

'We chipped away and eventually came out swinging,' says Joseph of their efforts. 'We are heading into three kingpin trials this year. And we exposed a crooked cabal of justice officials who can no longer take bribes on rhino poaching cases, so we won that battle, culminating in the suspension of the Court President and criminal charges pending.'

'I'm going to be in and out of court for the next year, and the end goal is to see a kingpin convicted for the very first time in this decade long war on greed.'

But taking on such powerful targets protected by corrupt officials comes at a cost - that of personal safety, something Joseph knows only to well. She has been the target of death threats, constantly changes her phone number, and leads an isolated life when back in South Africa.

'It's difficult to know who to trust. There are very few people I can trust - there are a few good cops watching my back, but there are many people who would like to see me disappear, especially since Saving the Wild now has a R50 000 reward out for information leading to the arrest of any magistrate conspiring with rhino poaching syndicates.'

While the whole Rhino/rhino tie-up makes sense for SsangYong on a purely 'it's the name of our ute now!' level, the actual arrangement is rather unique and quite bold for a brand in New Zealand. Take, for example, the television advertisement for the Rhino - it features a lot of what Saving the Wild does, but very little of the actual ute.

In fact, all of SsangYong's promotional material for the Rhino features Joseph and Saving the Wild, highlighting the local distributor's commitment to the cause, as well as the obvious promotional benefits such a worthwhile collaboration can bring.

Like most traditional brand ambassador relationships, SsangYong are providing Joseph with a Rhino ute to drive. Unlike most, however, they are shipping it over to South Africa for her. Something that could well prove vital to her cause.

'Back in June last year we spent six months infiltrating the most powerful poaching syndicate run by an alleged kingpin known as 'Mr Big'. At the time I was driving a beat up old car that kept breaking down,' she says.

'Two days before the operation the car broke down again and if we had been transporting our informer, who was selling the rhino horn to the kingpin in the company of an undercover cop, we would have lost everything, including the $40,000 we had spent getting to that point.'

Along with the car, SsangYong New Zealand is also donating a portion of the sale of every Rhino ute to Saving the Wild.

'When we heard of the great work that Jamie Joseph was doing with 'Saving the Wild,' it was clear to us that her work needed funding too, so with the imminent launch of the SsangYong Rhino and finding ourselves in a position to provide much-needed financial assistance, we were keen to be involved,' says Andrew Bayliss, General Manager of SsangYong distributor Great Lake Motor Distributors.

'What has pleased us even more, is that our dealers, staff and customers have embraced the cause, and we are delighted to have entered into the arrangement with Saving the Wild and to have such a passionate, brave and vibrant brand ambassador as Jamie Joseph.'

Of course the rhinoceros isn't located in our backyard, but Joseph says the support she gets for their cause from New Zealand is considerable, with a few wealthy private benefactors supporting Saving the Wild.

'It's incredible the support we get in New Zealand for saving rhinos. Africa is where I need to be to keep saving the wild and share space with these extraordinary animals - but New Zealand is home. This is where my family is, this is where my friends are, this is where my heart is.'