A pioneering R175-million game park development inspired by former president Nelson Mandela has run headlong into a court challenge by evicted farmworkers.
Marakele National Park, near Thabazimbi in Limpopo, is a public-private partnership widely seen as a model for the African continent, where many impoverished national parks are under severe threat.

A photograph, used in the Mail & Guardian’s Greening the Future supplement last week, has caused a flurry among environmentalists. Featured on the front page because it epitomised industry taking care of the environment, it appears to have been a botanical Trojan Horse.

Marthinus van Schalkwyk, the new minister of Environmental Affairs and Tourism, takes over leadership of a divided and troubled department. The National Intelligence Agency is presently investigating allegations of internal e-mail hacking and forgery involving disgruntled staff members in the department.

A member of a leopard smuggling ring exposed by the Mail & Guardian has been given a stiff sentence by a Northern Cape magistrate for illegal trafficking in wildlife. A farmer based near Kakamas was caught in a sting operation coordinated by conservation officials and police.

Government authorities in drought-ravaged Limpopo province are casting an acquisitive eye on nature reserves in a desperate attempt to avoid livestock deaths.
At least three provincial reserves have been earmarked for temporary cattle grazing and the decommissioning of a number of reserves for alternative long-term land use is being investigated.

There is no evidence that a controversial toll road proposed for the Eastern Cape’s Pondoland region is linked to an intention to mine coastal dunes along the Wild Coast, says Minister of Environmental Affairs and Tourism Valli Moosa. However, Moosa said, if necessary, he may overrule the Department of Environmental Affairs and Tourism’s go-ahead for the N2 toll road.

In the time that it takes to get to 2014, South Africa’s fastest land mammal could streak into oblivion. The sleek, spotted cheetah can move from zero to 100kph in less than three seconds, but it seems unable to outrun humans in the race for survival.