Today is a big day for vulture conservation, with Wildlife Act and Raptor Rescue in South Africa, as they will be releasing three rehabilitated African White-backed vulture back into the wild after they were poisoned in Zululand last year. (Watch video at bottom of page of a vulture being released.) In spite of lockdown, conservation […]

South African youth from various formations have called on the Minister of Environment, Forestry and Fisheries, Barbara Creecy, to ensure that economic recovery from Covid-19 is just, green, inclusive and youth and gender-responsive. Creecy today hosted a virtual Youth Environment and Sustainability Dialogue, where young South Africans presented a wide range of ideas and suggestions […]

In celebration of World Oceans Day yesterday, Shark Attack reached out to members of the public to get their views on the “bather safety nets” – aka shark nets – in Kwa-Zulu Natal, South Africa. There are currently 37 beaches along the KZN coastline that have “shark safety” gear installed. This shark safety gear is […]

Every year, the world produces about 300 million tonnes of plastic. Somewhere between 5 million and 12 million tonnes of it finds its way into the oceans, according to a 2015 study by Jenna Jambeck and colleagues. But only a tiny fraction of that is estimated to be floating at sea – around 200,000 to […]

At least 139 cases of fraud, corruption and irregular expenditure have been found in the Department of Human Settlements, Water and Sanitation, which has found wasteful expenditure of R16.5 billion during Minister Lindiwe Sisulu’s tenure. In a meeting today, Sisulu, who was appointed a year ago, said that there was a “huge backlog” in investigations […]

Appeals against plans for a huge new wind farm on the West Coast have been dismissed by environment minister Barbara Creecy, paving the way for the addition of up to 140 megawatts of renewable energy into the national grid. John Yeld reports. This is the Juno Wind Energy Facility, planned for a farm in the […]

Cape Town, South Africa, has been buzzing this week with the arrival in Hout Bay of another super pod of dolphins. (In April, local residents under lockdown were entertained by thousands of dolphins swimming in the bay.) UPDATE: Super pod of dolphins swims into Hout Bay, South Africa on 23 April 2021. Cape Town resident […]

On New Year’s Eve 2018, an arsonist started a fire in Betty’s Bay, a small town in South Africa’s Western Cape province. The fire consumed more than 12 000 hectares of vegetation, most of it mountain fynbos. Fynbos is a type of species-rich vegetation characterised by the presence of restios, ericas (heaths) and proteas. In […]

A conservation biologist from South Africa has won a prestigious Whitley Award worth £40,000 to support her quest to save threatened amphibians… in a “giant leap for amphibian conservation”. Jeanne Tarrant, known locally as the “Frog Lady”, works for the Endangered Wildlife Trust (EWT), where she manages the Threatened Amphibian Programme. EWT is the only […]

An abundance of snow fell again last night in southern Africa, turning mountain slopes in Lesotho into a winter wonderland. Check out the gorgeous photos and videos below by Martin Schultz at Afriski Mountain Resort. Afriski Director, Peter Peyper, said “we have received more snow during April this year than we did in the past […]

An intense hail storm on farms in the vicinity of Uhlenhorst in the Kalahari Desert last week, to the south-east of Rehoboth, covered a large swathe of land with a thick layer of ice and turned the countryside into an instant winter wonderland… writes Niël Terblanché from Informanté. The huge amount of falling ice flayed […]

The earth’s oceans are under grave threat, writes Kira Erwin. Scientists in many fields have pointed to the large-scale negative shifts brought about by human-made pollutants, mining and overfishing. How people now choose to behave, make collective decisions and build solidarity around the health of oceans has an impact not just on our own species […]

South African-based Blood Lions and the Humane Society International are two of the 241 conservation bodies around the world that have appealed to the World Health Organisation to publicly confirm the serious threat of live wildlife markets to human health, as evidenced by the Coronavirus pandemic. In a joint interview this week, some of them […]

Two Saturdays ago, while most of us were sleeping, a group of South African Water Warriors headed across the country to deliver food, fodder, water and hope to desperate strangers they’ve never met in the Northern Cape town of Kenhardt, one of many places in South Africa still gripped by drought and despair that’s so […]

Heritage Western Cape has slammed the study on which the developers based their proposed R4-billion property development at the River Club in Observatory, Cape Town. The Heritage Impact Assessment conducted by Liesbeek Leisure Properties Trust, which owns the land, is inadequate, flawed, unsubstantiated, problematic, and fails to address the requirements of the Heritage Resources Act, […]

An existing wind farm is crying foul after the government last month gave the conditional go-ahead for a massive new wind farm project on an adjoining property on the West Coast Peninsula near Vredenburg. The West Coast One wind farm, that has been operating since 2015, says the huge turbines of the recently approved Boulders Wind Energy […]

Organisation Undoing Tax Abuse (OUTA) has demanded that the City of Cape Town take immediate action against the sewage pollution in Milnerton lagoon. OUTA announced on 11 February that it had sent a letter to the City to ask for a meeting. The objective of the meeting is to present residents’ solutions to the pollution […]

Western Cape YouTuber Adam Spires posted a video last week appearing to expose the pollution being washed into the Atlantic Ocean in iconic Cape Town. Spire’s aerial footage (which he calls “shocking”) seems to show sewage pouring into the ocean of one of the most popular holiday destinations in the world… BUT, according to the […]

In listing 32 wild animal species as farm animals under the Animal Improvement Act in 2019, the Department of Agriculture went against the recommendations of the government’s own scientific authority. The scientific report on wildlife breeding was called for by the former Minister of Environmental Affairs (DEFF) and authored by 14 of the country’s top wildlife scientists. […]

The City of Ekurhuleni has confirmed in the past hour that the Ekurhuleni Disaster Management Services team has managed to extinguish the pipeline fire that caused havoc today in Alberton, South Africa. Residents in about 40 homes, living near the pipeline had to be evacuated as a precautionary measure. Ekurhuleni said it was “glad that […]

The government is due to announce its decision on a massive new wind energy project on the West Coast within the next two weeks. This is the proposed 140MW Boulders Wind Farm. It will consisting of 45 turbines standing 165m high. The German-owned developer plans to erect it on farmland close to Paternoster, Britannia Bay, […]

The joyous occasion in the beautiful Western Cape town in South Africa was marked by a serious and frightening theme. Barrydale held its annual giant puppet parade and performance on Sunday. Music, dance, dress-up and puppets brought the town to life as it celebrated the tenth year of this event. Titled “The Final Spring”, the […]

Wildlife photographers are always in search of that one perfect shot, either a unique animal or encounter or behaviour not seen before. But after today I realise that it’s possible to have an experience that’s just so unbelievable it defies the ability to truly capture the moment in either pixels or words… writes marine conservation […]

South Africa’s Karoo region has always been parched – it means land of thirst in the language of its earliest inhabitants, the Khoisan hunter gatherers. Yet nothing prepared residents of its oldest town, Graaff-Reinet, for their worst drought in more than a century. As the dry spell entered its fourth year, tap water turned brown […]

Each year, South Africans produce about 40 million tonnes of general waste, only 10% of which is recycled, according to the State of Waste Report published by the Department of Environmental Affairs in 2018. The other 90% ends up in landfills or waste storage facilities around the country. But what happens to the 10% of materials […]