Opinion: South Africa’s wildlife crisis is a national security threat—and we are in a fight with dangerous international crime syndicates
By Dr. Dion George
South Africa stands at a crossroads. At stake is not only the survival of our iconic wildlife—rhinos, elephants, lions, and abalone—but the integrity of our national security and the security of our international partners, including the United States.
During my tenure as Minister of Forestry, Fisheries and the Environment, I learned firsthand that illicit wildlife trafficking is never just about wildlife. It is one node in a sprawling criminal ecosystem that moves drugs, weapons, people, and illicit finance through the same routes and by the same violent networks. To confront these syndicates is to confront the backbone of transnational organised crime.
It is no coincidence that the same networks smuggling rhino horn and abalone are also moving fentanyl precursors, heroin, and trafficked migrants. These systems increasingly connect criminal groups across Africa and Latin America, binding syndicates in South Africa, Venezuela, and Colombia. Their reach is global. Their threat is strategic. And their power grows whenever a government weakens protections for wildlife or undermines the officials who try to enforce them.
That is the context in which my removal from office must be understood. The allegations against me are false and defamatory. The smear campaign that precipitated my dismissal—while I was representing South Africa at COP30—was orchestrated to discredit strong environmental governance and to weaken resistance to organised crime. I am now pursuing legal action in South Africa, the United Kingdom and the United States against News24 for defamation and I am seeking very significant damages.
The broader stakes, however, are not personal. They are national and international.
Both South Africa and the United States formally recognise illicit wildlife trafficking as a national security threat. This is not rhetoric. These syndicates possess military-grade weapons, corrupt state institutions, assassinate rangers, law enforcement officers and politicians and manipulate border, port, and financial systems to sustain their operations. Weakening environmental protections creates openings for these networks to expand.
During my time in Cabinet, South Africa upheld science-based positions that aligned with our international obligations and defended our ecosystems. We moved to uplist dried abalone to Appendix II of CITES—a critical step to protect a species that has become a currency for drug traffickers. We maintained the zero quota for the commercial farming and slaughter of lions for the export of their bones to China. We held firm against reopening the commercial trade in rhino horn and ivory to China and Vietnam.
These were not symbolic positions. They were strategic decisions designed to prevent criminal syndicates from embedding themselves deeper into our economy and government.
Yet South Africa today faces a profound internal risk: the growing overlap between political leadership, security agencies, and narcotics-linked wildlife trafficking networks. The questions being explored by the Madlanga Commission are not merely institutional—they go to the heart of whether the state has allowed criminal ecosystems to intertwine with political and intelligence structures.
Now, free from the constraints of executive office, I intend to continue this work with renewed clarity. My focus will remain on strengthening accountability, supporting the disruption of state-sponsored and cartel-driven criminal networks, and defending the natural heritage that belongs to South Africa’s future generations, and of which we are stewards to the world.
As the G20 Summit approaches, South Africa must choose what kind of state it wishes to be:
A sanctuary for some of the world’s most extraordinary wildlife?
Or a sanctuary for criminal syndicates that threaten the country and our allies’ national security? The world is watching.
