Trophy hunting quotas without accountability: How different courts are exposing the same broken state
Daily Maverick | 08.04.2026 21:40
South Africa’s Constitution in section 24 is unambiguous: the environment must be protected for the benefit of present and future generations. That obligation falls on the state as trustee of the country’s biodiversity, not as its owner, and not as a broker for private interests. When the state sets trophy hunting quotas for leopard, elephant and black rhino, it does so not as a discretionary act of policy, but as a legal act of stewardship and as trustee of the populace. It must be rational. It must be transparent. It must be grounded in science, and constitutionally viable. On all three counts, South Africa’s quota regime has persistently failed.
