Q&A: Would you pay USD5,000 to have a rhino named after you? Rajiv Ruparelia talks about the Ruparelia Group’s latest efforts to conserve rhinos and why they named a newly-born rhino, Rae Ruparelia The Ruparelia Foundation, the charity arm of the Ruparelia Group- Uganda's largest business conglomerate, is not new to wildlife conservation efforts, especially rhinos. In 2000 the Group parted with thousands of dollars to meet the cost of translocating Kabira- one of two rhinos imported into Uganda from Solio Ranch in Kenya to the Uganda Wildlife Education Centre. These were the first rhinos to set foot in Uganda since the rare animals- were declared extinct in Uganda in 1983. Since then, the Group has actively supported wildlife conservation efforts of especially endangered species, such as the chimpanzees. Dr. Sudhir Ruparelia the Chairman and founder of the Group, and the Foundation is an avid animal lover. He is a guardian of an adopted Chimpanzee at the Ngamba Island Chimpanzee Sanctuary run by the Chimpanzee Sanctuary & Wildlife Conservation Trust (Chimpanzee Trust). The chimp, Ruparelia is also named after him. The Foundation, recently donated UGX10,000,000 to the Trust, as an emergency fund to feed the chimps that were running out of food due to the dwindling visitor traffic and revenue at the island, that is home to 49 orphaned chimps. Just this month, the Group again parted with USD5,000 (UGX18.3 million) for naming rights of a new born rhino at the Ziwa Rhino Sanctuary- the 33rd rhino at the sanctuary. The baby rhino has been named Rae Ruparelia and is the second animal to be adopted by the family after Ruparelia the Chimp. In this interview, Rajiv Ruparelia one of the trustees of the Foundation, talks about the Group's interest in wildlife conservation and why it is essential for the tourism sector.

Give us a brief background about the Ruparelia Foundation and its conservation work.

My name is Rajiv Ruparelia, one of the trustees of the Ruparelia Foundation. The Foundation mainly participates in five areas, and conservation is one of them. The others are sports, culture, education and supporting vulnerable people, in areas we find necessary and deserving.

Why conservation, you may ask. It is one of the things that we’ve looked at, and we find to be a driving force for Uganda. The conservation of Uganda’s flora and fauna- its plants and animals, is not only crucial for our cultural heritage, but very strategic for the tourism industry, which generates $1.2 billion annually and has a potential for much more. That is why we feel the conservation of rhinos, amongst many other animals, is a significant and sustainable investment.

You will recall that the rhinos were declared endangered between 1960s and 1970s and in 1983, both black rhinos and northern white rhinos were declared extinct throughout Uganda. Rhinos were to return later back into Uganda, following the establishment of the Ziwa Rhino Sanctuary in the mid-90s . They started with about two rhinos, which they have managed to multiply and as we speak, there are 33 rhinos. Right now, there are discussions to release these rhinos back to the wild.

From a sustainability of Uganda’s tourism sector view, we know that the big 5 game – lions, leopards, buffaloes, elephants and rhinos are significant drivers of tourism traffic. While Uganda has the other four in good numbers, the rhinos have been absent from the wild. It is therefore essential that we all support the excellent work at the sanctuary and eventually see the rhinos back into the wild. This will be a big asset for our tourism industry, our cultural heritage and to the country.

How exactly did you arrive at the decision to name this baby rhino Ruparelia?

First of all, the Ziwa Rhino Sanctuary is a non-profit organisation that relies on donors and the little visitor revenue to sustain its activities. The sanctuary has donors from all around the world- from America to South Africa, and from individuals to companies to corporates, such as Walt Disney.  The money that the sanctuary get goes into enhancement of the facility and protecting the fragile rhino population.  Their situation became a little more fragile during Covid-19 when visitor numbers nearly came to zero. Therefore, the Ruparelia Foundation found it imperative during the Coronavirus time to ensure that we support them, for them to be able to keep the rhinos safe and overcoming such challenges as, the shortage of food and medicine.

How we came to this, I visited the sanctuary about May with my wife, Naiya Ruparelia. At the time, another baby rhino had been born at the sanctuary. When we saw the baby, my wife personally, absolutely fell in love with it. She fell in love with the baby rhino. She said that she wanted to name a baby rhino. I then took it upon myself to make her dream a reality. We said, let us adopt one into the family and from there, we decided to apply for naming rights. Luckily for us, on the 12th of December, a new baby rhino was born.

It is our absolute pleasure and honour, to name the baby Rae Ruparelia. The name was chosen by my sister (Sheena Ruparelia) and my wife (Naiya Ruparelia) who are both trustees to the Foundation as well. Rae Ruparelia is now a proud ‘member’ of the Ruparelia family. 

The Foundation is paying USD5,000 (UGX18.3 million) for the naming rights of baby Rae Ruparelia.

So who is Rae Ruparelia? What don’t we know about this new member of the Ruparelia family?

Rae is a bouncing male rhino calf who is about a week old now. He was born weighing about 50 kilos and is full of life. I think it took him about an hour or two to get up on his feet. This is normal. Rhinos take some time to be able to use their feet to stand independently.  Rae is healthy and loves to run around the sanctuary under the protection of his watchful mother. Importantly, his mother- Uhuru is also healthy. Both mum and baby son are doing fine.

It was my wife and my sister that came up with the name. At the Foundation, we always let the ladies choose the names of everything we do- the identity.

We will be closely monitoring Rae to ensure he grows up healthy and live up to its full life expectancy of 60 years.   

Where do you see the Ruparelia Foundation as far as conservation is concerned, in the next 10-20 years?

Well, I think the Ruparelia Foundation is going to become more active next year. We are trying to set up a full-time management for the foundation so as to consolidate our impact in the five areas I mentioned earlier. We will also focus on going beyond that to network and get more people and organisations, both locally and internationally interesting in furthering the causes we are invested in. 

In terms of conservation, similarly, we will be investing in attracting more partners to be interested in and supporting Uganda’s cultural heritage and natural assets― protecting them and enhancing them both for tourism purposes and for future generations.

Tourism in Uganda is one of the largest revenue earners, if not the largest. Unfortunately, I feel as though tourism; the importance of the wildlife, the national parks and the sanctuaries has not been well integrated into our school curriculum. Of course, they teach about animals and plants, but they no longer physically go and visit these places as part of the national curriculum. If our generation and the next generation cannot appreciate the value and or see how to extract value out of these natural endowments that we have in Uganda, they will continue to look at them, merely as protected government facilities rather than strategic, community and or national assets, which is extremely dangerous.

It is important that as a generation and other future generations, we together value these national assets and integrate that value in our lives. This has got to start at the early levels of life, which is our children. When children grow up to value these animals, when they grow up loving plants and animals, they will all appreciate how to sustainably conserve them and such things as poaching will eventually become a thing of the past.