Five large baobab trees have been held at a logistics warehouse in Durban for three months after South African authorities stopped their export, Daily Maverick reports.
The Department of Forestry, Fisheries and the Environment said the trees were intercepted on 17 July because the exporter had no valid licence to remove, possess, transport or export them. Baobabs are not endangered but are specially protected under the National Forests Act. A late licence application was refused, and an appeal was dismissed on 27 October.
The exporter is named as Corné Maré of Pretoria-based Divine Landscapes. Daily Maverick links the case to Georgian billionaire and former prime minister Bidzina Ivanishvili's private tree park on the Black Sea, where eight baobabs exported from Kenya in 2023 after a public row later died.
Source: Daily Maverick
