Studies such as Phinda have shown that replacing livestock farming with eco-tourism has meant, in round terms, ten times the income generated, five times the number of jobs and four times the wages. By neglecting your statutory duty to preserve fauna and flora, you are perpetuating poverty in the Northern Cape. Then there is the ecology. Livestock farming is killing the Kalahari. The camelthorn acacia is being turned into impenetrable swarthaak and sand.
Unscientific ranchers export meat and import the desert.
There are political considerations as well. Many South Africans do not have the privilege of owning land, Minister. Yet you take money from the struggling taxpayer to provide services to the landowners which they do not need. And for good measure, you reward the taxpayer for having his money stolen in this fashion by using that money to destroy the country's wildlife heritage. Your department is a grim caricature of what a nature conservation department should be, and prosecuting someone for showing kindness to animals is a good point on which to rest my case.