Towns and cities in the world's developing countries are growing on an unprecedented scale. Ten years ago, an estimated 40 percent of the developing world's population - or 2 billion people - lived in urban areas.

Southern African nations are threatening to quit the global wildlife trade regulator after it refused to relax restrictions on trade in ivory and rhino horn and imposed a near total ban on zoos taking African elephants captured in the wild.

Our future crops will face threats not only from climate change, but also from the massive expansion of cities, a new study warns.

A recent report published in Oxford Academic by Trouwborst, Loveridge and Macdonald compares CITES hunting trophy export quotas for African range states to established benchmarks.

There is no escaping the fact the mechanisms driving CITES are categorically failing the species that the treaty was enacted to protect. 

The South African Bureau for Agricultural and Food Policy expects the country’s economic recovery to be a prolonged process “with real GDP only projected to exceed 2019 levels by 2026”, according to their newly released baseline report. The fresh produce industry will be significantly affected by shrinking consumer demand and interrupted supply chains.

The first global-scale assessment of the role ecosystems play in providing sanitation finds that nature provides at least 18% of sanitation services in 48 cities worldwide, according to researchers in the United Kingdom and India.

 There is a major scientific gap of animal welfare studies focusing on captive lions housed in commercial farms in South Africa.

According to the Department Forestry, Fisheries and the Environment’s (DFFE) ministerial task team report of 2024, 626 tigers are known to be kept in captivity in South Africa, often in squalid conditions. No data was received from KwaZulu-Natal or Mpumalanga, so the number could be higher. Tigers are largely bred for trophy hunting, trade in their bones for the tiger wine market in South East Asia and live export.