The wildlife reform that vanished: What happened to South Africa’s wellbeing agenda?

In the aftermath of the international outcry over South Africa’s captive lion breeding industry, the government promised a fundamental rethink of wildlife policy. Parliament convened a landmark colloquium in 2018 to confront the controversy surrounding canned hunting, lion bone exports and the broader commercialisation of wild animals.

The resulting policy review, conducted by a high-level panel appointed by the then environment minister, Barbara Creecy, was meant to address what many experts described as a deep structural problem in the country’s wildlife governance: a system in which conservation, commercial wildlife industries and animal welfare had become increasingly entangled.

When the high-level panel delivered its report in 2021, it recommended a shift towards what it called a “One Welfare” approach – recognising that the wellbeing of animals, ecological sustainability and human interests cannot be separated in wildlife governance. Parliament and Cabinet subsequently endorsed these recommendations, effectively committing the state to integrating animal welfare considerations into national wildlife policy.

For a country whose conservation model has long been closely tied to private wildlife industries, this was not a minor adjustment. It represented a potential shift in how South Africa defines responsible wildlife management.

But four years later, the institutional mechanism created to implement this reform has stalled.

The forum meant to drive change

In 2023, the Department of Forestry, Fisheries and the Environment (DFFE) launched the Wildlife Well-Being Forum. The forum was designed as a collaborative policy platform bringing together government officials, scientists, legal experts and civil society organisations working on wildlife protection. Its purpose was to help translate the high-level panel’s recommendations into concrete policy measures and to embed the One Welfare principle within South Africa’s wildlife governance framework.

At the time, the creation of the forum was presented as evidence that the government intended to move beyond rhetoric and begin the practical work of reform. Integrating animal welfare into wildlife policy would require new regulatory thinking, legal adjustments and sustained engagement between the government and a wide range of stakeholders.

Yet according to a recent open letter sent to Parliament’s Portfolio Committee on Forestry, Fisheries and the Environment, the forum has not met regularly since its launch. The last substantive meeting took place in February 2025, and subsequent meetings scheduled for later that year were cancelled. As a result, the forum’s work programme has effectively been thwarted.

This is despite the fact that the forum had already begun producing substantive work. A formal workplan had been developed, eight specialist task teams had been established and detailed statements of work had been completed to guide policy development in key areas.

Without sustained engagement from the department, however, these initiatives have largely remained dormant.

Two forums, two different priorities

The concerns raised by civil society organisations become more significant when viewed in the broader context of government engagement with wildlife stakeholders.

While the Wildlife Well-Being Forum appears to have fallen inactive, the long-standing Wildlife Forum – a structure composed largely of representatives from the commercial wildlife industry – continues to meet regularly with the department. Unlike the wellbeing forum, this body does not include civil society organisations focused on animal welfare.

According to the organisations that signed the open letter, the DFFE’s continued engagement with the industry forum contrasts sharply with the department’s apparent disengagement from the wellbeing forum.

The imbalance has raised concerns about whether the policy reform process initiated after the captive lion breeding controversy is being allowed to lose momentum.

The issue is not simply one of scheduling. Advisory forums often play a crucial role in shaping environmental policy, particularly in sectors where commercial interests are deeply embedded. If certain forums continue to receive regular access to policymakers while others fall into disuse, the balance of influence in policy development can shift accordingly.

Why wildlife wellbeing matters legally

The concept of wildlife wellbeing is not merely an ethical argument promoted by animal welfare organisations. In South Africa it has increasingly acquired legal significance.

In a landmark 2016 judgment, the Constitutional Court recognised that animal welfare forms part of the country’s environmental value system. The court held that concern for the suffering of animals is integrally connected to biodiversity conservation and environmental protection. This interpretation has influenced subsequent legal debates about wildlife policy and the responsibilities of the state.

The high-level panel’s recommendation to adopt a One Welfare approach therefore reflected more than an evolving ethical perspective. It also aligned with a broader shift in legal thinking about the place of animals within environmental governance.

The Wildlife Well-Being Forum was intended to provide a structured space where these evolving legal and policy principles could be translated into practical governance measures.

If the forum is no longer functioning, that process risks stalling before it has properly begun.

South Africa’s global credibility

The implications extend beyond domestic policy debates. South Africa occupies a highly visible position in global conservation politics. It hosts some of the world’s most iconic wildlife populations and operates one of the largest wildlife industries anywhere.

Because of this, the country’s policies influence international debates on trophy hunting, wildlife trade and conservation financing. When the government endorsed the high-level panel’s recommendations, many observers saw it as an opportunity for South Africa to demonstrate leadership in developing more ethically grounded conservation models.

Allowing the structures intended to implement those reforms to quietly lapse would send a very different signal.

Questions Parliament should ask now

The organisations that signed the open letter have asked Parliament’s environmental portfolio committee to investigate the situation. They have requested that the department provide a written record of all meetings of the Wildlife Well-Being Forum since its launch – including those that were postponed or cancelled – and that it commit to reconvening the forum with a clear schedule for regular meetings.

These requests ultimately raise a broader question. When Parliament endorsed the high-level panel’s recommendations, it effectively set South Africa on a new path for wildlife governance. The Wildlife Well-Being Forum was created to help ensure that this policy shift would be implemented.

If the forum is now inactive, Parliament has a responsibility to ask why. Because environmental reforms rarely fail through dramatic political reversals. More often they fade quietly as attention shifts elsewhere and institutional mechanisms lose momentum.

The risk now is that the most significant attempt in years to reform South Africa’s wildlife governance could disappear in precisely that way. DM

Dr Adam Cruise is an investigative environmental journalist, travel writer and academic. He has contributed to a number of international publications, including National Geographic and The Guardian, covering diverse topics from the plight of elephants, rhinos and lions in Africa to coral reef rejuvenation in Indonesia. Cruise is a doctor of philosophy, specialising in animal and environmental ethics, and is the editor of the online Journal of African Elephants.