Elephant management in South Africa remains legally, ethically and ecologically complex. Despite the adoption of the 2008 Norms and Standards for Elephant Management and the 2016 Norms and Standards for the Management of Damage-Causing Animals, the report argues that governance challenges persist across fenced reserves, open landscapes and transboundary areas. As ecological keystone species, elephants are vital for biodiversity, but they can also impact ecosystems, property and livelihoods, making management decisions highly contested. The authors argue that current approaches often rely on simplistic measures, such as population numbers or identifying individual “problem” animals, rather than addressing the underlying ecological drivers of impacts.

The report concludes that the current legal framework may be vulnerable under the Promotion of Administrative Justice Act (PAJA) because it does not consistently meet the constitutional principles of rationality and proportionality. It recommends replacing the existing Norms and Standards with a more flexible, principles-based framework that requires management decisions to demonstrate a clear, evidence-based link between interventions and their intended ecological or social outcomes. Such an approach would strengthen both the legal defensibility and effectiveness of elephant management.

Read full report: https://wildlife.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/wsb.70034