The Mail & Guardian stopped just short of buying two tame cheetahs for a ”canned” hunt this week. The deal came to an end when we refused to fork out about R100 000 and failed to produce a letter from a European embassy approving the export of the cheetahs’ heads.

A row has erupted over plans involving a bid by international primatologist Jane Goodall and South African National Parks CEO David Mabunda to rescue abused chimpanzees from Angola and give them sanctuary in South Africa. Seven chimps are destined to fly to the Umhloti sanctuary in Nelspruit in early September.

Within months of the discovery that Angola’s unique giant sable antelopes managed to survive almost 30 years of civil war, South African wildlife dealers are offering to sell them to overseas zoos. When Angolan conservationists discovered a small herd of the striking sables by filming them on a trip camera in February, they feared news of their survival could pose the biggest threat to them.

As world delegates descend on Durban this weekend for a historic heritage convention, South African experts are arguing about where the country’s national heirlooms belong and who should look after them. Various local experts at the World Heritage Committee meeting insist it is time for treasures such as the Makapan apeman fossils and the Mapungubwe golden rhino to go ”home”.

A row is raging in one of the country’s largest environmental NGOs over the company people keep at the Mail & Guardian’s annual Greening the Future Awards. No sooner had the Botanical Society of South Africa won the prize for environmental best practice disapproving e-mails were circulating among the society’s 16 branches.

In Steel Valley, residents say cats are born without heads, a piglet had sexual organs growing out of its anus, and a cow born hermaphrodite had to be put down. Vegetables grow in strange shapes and even the rats are ill. These alleged monstrosities, have prompted diehard residents of Vanderbijlpark, launch fresh legal action against South Africa’s steel giant, Mittal Steel.

If you’re planning to get rid of troublesome waste like paint thinners or oil by pouring it down the drain or dumping it in the veld, watch out — you may end up with some kick-arse dirt busters on your case. This is the message of a court case in which an East London pub owner was fined R100 000 for burying drums of hazardous waste on his property.

Mashile Phalane is a simple, determined man from Tzaneen with a loud voice. He only realised how loud when the government threatened anti-panic legislation to stop people like him from terrifying the public. Phalane is a key figure in Earthlife Africa’s anti-nuclear efforts. He calls himself a ”great challenger”.