In early April, Daily Maverick published a report that left many conservationists appalled – one of South Africa’s most successful private game reserves, set in a part of the country with irreplaceable fauna and flora, was under attack by a company called Tiara Mining. Although there were m.
Between the towns of Gravelotte and Phalaborwa in Limpopo Province, on an outcrop of low granite hills, grows a species of African cycad that is to be found nowhere else on the planet. The plant, listed under CITES Appendix 1 code for “most endangered,” which means that 183 countries have agreed to afford it the highest level of protection is itemised officially as
Encephalartos dyerianus, but is known colloquially as the Lillie Cycad. On the regulated market, as evidence of the extinction threat, a juvenile plant will set you back around R210,000.
If the environmental impact assessment (EIA) is anything to go by, the fact that these hills are located in the Selati Game Reserve appears to have escaped the directors of Tiara Mining a company headquartered in Plettenberg Bay that claims to have secured prospecting rights on the land.