From where she stands, Petronel Nieuwoudt can see hippos wallowing in the dam and wild rhinos grazing peacefully. Beyond them lie mountains, and the African bush. As as office views go, its spectacular. But whats not immediately obvious are the layers of security needed to keep it that way.

The rhino sanctuary Nieuwoudt runs, not far from South Africa s Kruger National Park, cares for orphaned and wounded rhinos, many of them victims of poaching attacks. Sadly, the recovering animals are still targets for men with machetes.

The poachers will come to try and get the horns off the rhino, they arent necessarily coming for us, says Nieuwoudt, a former police officer who served in a specialized unit protecting endangered species . But if you stand in their way, there will be trouble. The horn, traditionally thought to have medicinal or status value in some countries, is worth more by weight than cocaine, and some will stop at nothing to get it.

If the killing and maiming of endangered animals for horns, tusks and other body parts was once driven by poverty or ignorance, these days its more akin to drug smuggling or sex trafficking a multi-billion dollar global business run by organized criminal gangs, bringing violence and corruption.