South Africa

To commemorate the fiftieth anniversary of Robert F. Kennedy’s “Ripples of Hope” speech at the University of Cape Town, a congressional delegation (codel) visited South Africa the last week of May. It was led by Representative John Lewis, Democrat of Georgia and an icon of the American civil rights movement; Senator Chris Coons, Democrat of Delaware; and Kerry Kennedy, daughter of the late Senator Kennedy and the president of Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights, a U.S. based non-profit organization. After the codel returned to Washington, Senator Coons delivered a speech on the Senate floor that is deeply thoughtful, a meditation on the parallels between South Africa and the United States, especially with respect to centuries of racism and the still-incomplete efforts to address its consequences. It is a must-read for those who care about the United States and Africa. Senator Coons’s reference point is a quotation from Robert Kennedy’s 1966 speech, delivered during the zenith of Apartheid, which began by describing “a land in which the native inhabitants were at first subdued, but relations with whom remain a problem to this day; a land which defined itself on a hostile frontier; …a land which was once the importer of slaves, and now must struggle to wipe out the last traces of that former bondage.” Senator Kennedy paused before delivering the punchline: “I refer, of course, to the United States of America.” Senator Coons then proceeded to highlight and analyze the shared history and challenges of the two multiracial democracies. Senator Coons’s bottom line builds on a quotation from Nelson Mandela: “I am not a saint, unless you think of a saint as a sinner who keeps on trying.” He went on to say: “The peoples of the United States must keep on trying. The people of South Africa must keep on trying.” That the codel visited South Africa at this particular time is important and significant, beyond the commemoration of the 1966 speech. South Africa faces a historic drought, near-zero economic growth related to the world-wide decline in commodity prices, and a presidential administration seemingly riddled with corruption. Many South Africans fear that the country’s liberal democracy is under assault from forces that include some close to the president. Further, at present, formal relations between Washington and Pretoria are correct but hardly cordial. In February 2016 the Secretary General of the governing African National Congress – the party of Nelson Mandela and current president Jacob Zuma – accused the U.S. Embassy in Pretoria of plotting “regime change” through the Obama administration’s Young African Leaders Initiative. In fact, the embassy had consulted in advance with the Secretary General on suitable South African candidates for the program. The codel’s visit is a reminder of the shared civil rights heritage of both countries and is a recognition and encouragement of South Africa’s rule of law based on institutions rather than personalities and a constitution with among the most sweeping protections of human rights in the world. Senator Coons has had a particularly close relationship with Africa. He has been a volunteer relief worker in Kenya, studied at the University of Nairobi, and worked for the South African Council of Churches; in his speech he recalled his deep admiration for Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Anglican archbishop of Cape Town and former president of the South African Council of Churches.  

Over the past few days, both the United Kingdom and the United States have warned their nationals of a possible Islamist terrorist attack in South Africa. The warnings cite upscale shopping malls in Johannesburg and Cape Town as the most likely targets. It is not clear what, specifically, led to the warnings. However, Ramadan started on June 5, and the self-proclaimed Islamic State has called publicly for terrorist attacks during the Holy Month. States often reject such U.S. and U.K. warnings as somehow implying that they cannot protect their residents and visitors. Such warnings can also impact negatively on the tourist industry. Predictably, in response to the U.S. warning, Clayson Monyela, a South African foreign affairs spokesman, said, “The state security agency and other security agencies in this country are very much capable of keeping South Africa safe and everybody in this country, including Americans,” according to Reuters. Reuters also reports that South African security officials say that “there are no known militant groups” operating in the country. South Africa’s Muslim minority is very small, less than 1.5 percent of the population. However, Reuters also quotes analysts as saying that a terrorist attack is “feasible,” and that current economic hardships and very high levels of unemployment could radicalize South African Muslim youth. South Africa’s security services are among the best in Africa. Nevertheless, no country is immune from a possible attack. Shopping malls are particularly vulnerable, as the 2013 al-Shabab attack on Nairobi’s Westgate Mall showed.

The Council on Foreign Relations’ Africa Program has just “soft-launched” a new online tool we call the Sub-Saharan Security Tracker (SST). We anticipate a roundtable at the Council’s New York and Washington offices to introduce formally the SST. In the meantime, it is available for use. Like the Nigeria Security Tracker, the SST tracks incidents of political violence. The purpose of the SST is to show the trends in political violence across all of sub-Saharan Africa. The SST uses data provided by the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data (ACLED) Project to map over three million data points. It allows the user to determine the geographic distribution of violence as well as trends over time, and the actors involved in political violence. The SST is updated monthly. The SST’s map and graphs represent information based on the number of deaths. However, the map also allows the user to see the number of reported incidents of violence in each country. The countries where the numbers of deaths attributed to political violence are the greatest are Nigeria, Sudan, Somalia, South Sudan, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and the Central African Republic. Nigeria has seen by far the most deaths attributed to political violence (over 34,000). However, Somalia has had more than double Nigeria’s number of incidents of political violence (approximately 12,800 to 6,100). Sub-Saharan Africa is made up of forty-eight countries and is home to approximately one billion people. It does not include Algeria, Egypt, Libya, Morocco, and Tunisia. The data used in the SST begins June 1, 2011. To find out more about the Sub-Saharan Security Tracker you can visit: www.cfr.org/african_security_tracker.

There is less than meets the eye to the South African parliament’s passage at the end of May of a land reform bill, called the “Expropriation Bill.” Ostensibly, the new legislation has some similarity to law of eminent domain in the United States. The new legislation would permit the government to take land for a “public purpose,” but (as in the United States) South African landowners would be compensated with an amount determined by a new ‘valuer general.’ The new legislation replaces the “willing buyer, willing seller” principle of land reform. The parliamentary vote was almost entirely by the governing African National Congress (ANC); the principal opposition parties, including the Democratic Alliance (DA) and the Economic Freedom Fighters, were not present or walked out. It is commonly estimated that since the end of apartheid only about 8 to 10 percent of white-owned land has been transferred to blacks. Background to land reform is to be found in Chapter 6 of my recently released book, “Morning in South Africa.” The ANC, facing local and provincial elections in August, is increasingly dependent on a rural, black constituency. The Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU) is politically allied with the ANC, along with the South African Communist Party (SACP). Accordingly, the COSATU spokesman hailed the new legislation as addressing “the legacies of apartheid and colonialism.” He denounced opposition as “hysterical attacks” by those who “clearly miss and are nostalgic for an era, where this country belonged to [a] minority and the majority was treated as second class citizens.” Clearly the ANC sees the new legislation as a populist electoral plus. However, deputy public works minister and longtime SACP activist Jeremy Cronin correctly cautions: “It’s very important to not see this framework bill as some kind of silver bullet that’s going to solve all problems in regard to land reform.” Constitutional law expert Pierre de Vos is quoted in the media as observing that expropriation of property is subject to the South African constitution and fair market prices. He notes that the government is short of funds to buy large amounts of land at market prices. Nor is there much money for the support of small farmers. His bottom line: the bill is unlikely to make much difference. AgriSA, a commercial farmers union, tells the media that it will monitor the legislation’s implementation and “take to court any attempts to expropriate agricultural land without full compensation.” The judiciary has repeatedly and successfully affirmed its independence from the ANC administration. Other commentators see agricultural land reform as yesterday’s issue. John Kane-Berman at the South African Institute of Race Relations is quoted in the media as saying that the black demand for farm land is much less than land for housing in cities: “The view in the ANC that land is the answer to poverty, inequality, and unemployment has no basis in reality. Ordinary people have long since voted against this idea with their feet by moving to town.” He makes an important point: the country is rapidly urbanizing, with more than 60 percent of South Africans living in urban areas.

South Africa’s sporting record is outstanding. The country regularly produces world-class performances in golf, tennis, cricket, rugby, and soccer (‘football’). As with much else, sports in South Africa are shaped by race. Under apartheid, like everything else, sports were strictly segregated by race. White South Africans, especially, were ‘sports mad,’ and felt keenly the imposition of sporting sanctions as part of the world wide anti-apartheid campaign. Of the two mass spectator sports, rugby was ‘white’ while soccer was ‘black.’ Other sports, such as tennis and golf, were almost exclusively play by white South Africans. Twenty-one years after the ‘transition to non-racial democracy,’ the pattern remains largely the same. Whites, about 9 percent of the population, dominate golf, tennis, cricket, and rugby. Soccer is almost entirely black, with the national squad having a sole white player. The Springboks, the national rugby team, has thirty-six players, of whom twelve are “of color,” with the ‘majority’ being black Africans. (The others ‘of color’ are likely to be coloured, who often regard themselves as a separate race, or ‘Asians’.) The policy of the governing African National Congress (ANC) is the ‘transformation’ of sports to ensure the end of apartheid injustices. To that end, the Minister of Sport, Fikile Mbalula, has announced he will ban certain South African sports bodies from hosting international events “because of their failure to reach their transformation target.” The sports targeted are cricket, netball, and rugby. Despite ANC policy, a recent South African Institute of Race Relations poll indicates that over 70 percent of black South Africans believe sports teams should be chosen based purely on merit, and not the transformation goals. As with affirmative action in the United States, mathematical percentages loom large in the South African debate. For example, one South African tweeted, “White people make up 8.9 percent of South Africa’s population. One white player in #Bafana is 9.1 percent of team, which is more than enough #Transformation #Mbalula” (Bafana Bafana is the male national soccer team’s nickname.) Black South Africans have been slow to make a mark in certain sports where the costs of participation can be high. Hence, in part, the paucity of black South African tennis or cricket players. Their impact, however, is growing in prominence in rugby.

A footnote to the May 2016 forest and brush fires in Alberta, Canada is the presence of three hundred South African professional firefighters. They had previously received training in the use of Canadian firefighting equipment. Air Canada transported the firefighters from South Africa to northern Alberta, a flight that lasted more than twenty hours. According to Canadian media, the flight was the first time Air Canada operated to South Africa. The South Africans are part of Working on Fire, a South African government-funded job creation program with a focus on the marginalized. According to its website, it has five thousand men and women trained in wildfire fighting with two hundred bases around the country. Almost one third are women, the highest percentage of any firefighting force in the world, according to the website of Working on Fire. Wildfires have always been a part of the ecology of South Africa, often used as a tool for the management of grasslands and some forests. There are two fire seasons: the summer in the Western Cape, and the winter almost everywhere else. As elsewhere, now most fires in South Africa are started by accident or through carelessness. Working on Fire would appear to be an effective program that directly addresses marginalized youth, especially in the rural areas, in addition to meeting the need for wildfire fighters. It is not clear from media sources whether the Alberta government compensated the South African organization for wildfire fighting services, or instead paid the firemen individually.

My new book on South Africa is now available in hardcover and Kindle. The book’s core argument is that despite the corruption and incompetency of the Zuma administration combined with slow economic growth, the country’s democratic institutions are strong enough to weather the current period of poor governance. Intended for the non-specialist reader, the book includes an orientation to the history of South Africa. A review of current demographic trends highlights the persistent consequences of white supremacy and apartheid. Since Nelson Mandela’s 1994 presidential inauguration, social and economic change has been slow. Despite the emergence of a black middle class and a few black oligarchs, the gulf between white wealth and that of the other racial groups is greater now than it was in 1994. Whites also have longer life spans, a reflection of their access to much better education and health services. However, politically the country is a fully functioning democracy with credible elections. The book includes a discussion of education, health, contemporary politics, and land reform with an eye as to how South Africa’s democracy is responding to thorny challenges. The book highlights the strength of constitutionally mandated institutions, the rule of law, and the independence of the judiciary. South Africa is a constitutional democracy, not a parliamentary democracy. The constitution limits what governments can do at all levels and has among the most elaborate protections of human rights of any country in the world. Notably, South Africa has outlawed capital punishment and is the only African country that permits gay marriage. Both are the result of judicial rulings based on human rights provisions in the constitution. Both are deeply unpopular, yet there has been no significant effort to amend the constitution to permit the former and ban the latter; such is the prestige of the rule of law. Morning in South Africa concludes with an assessment of why prospects are poor at present for closer South African ties with the West, especially the United States, so long as the current government leadership remains in power. However, I conclude that South Africa’s democracy has been surprisingly adaptable, and that despite seemingly intractable problems, the black majority are no longer strangers in their own country. These are the basis for building in the future a new, stronger relationship between the “rainbow nation” and the West.

On May 15, the Sunday Times (English, Johannesburg) published rumors of the impending arrest of Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan over alleged revenue service irregularities. However, on May 16, Beeld (Afrikaans, Johannesburg) reported that President Zuma denied the Sunday Times report. Nevertheless, the South African national currency, the rand (ZAR), fell the following two days, reaching its weakest level in two months; it has fallen 2.1 percent against the U.S. dollar since March 15. Bloomberg sees the Gordhan investigation as evidence that Zuma is trying to get rid of the finance minister, who has been curbing government spending and corruption and seeks to retain the country’s investment-grade credit rating.  Bloomberg quotes Peter Attard Montalto, an emerging markets strategist, as saying, “We think that markets are vastly underestimating the political risk. The arrest of a respected finance minister in order to engineer a reshuffle to achieve rent-extraction aims would be a major, catastrophic, market event from which it would be difficult to recover.” The Daily Maverick, long critical of Zuma, suggests credibly that the Sunday Times report of the rumor of Gordhan’s impending arrest could have been designed to test the market’s reaction should he be removed. The fall of the rand indicates that the markets would respond as negatively as they did in December 2015 when Zuma fired the respected Nhanhla Nene as finance minister and replaced him with a largely unknown parliamentarian. The blowback was so strong that Zuma was forced to appoint the well-regarded Gordhan as finance minister.  He had previously held the position from 2009 to 2014. Few think the drama is over. Warrick Butler, head of emerging market spot tradition at Standard Bank Group, Ltd., is quoted by Bloomberg as saying, “People are getting tired of the circus and investors don’t like uncertainty.”

The Tax Justice Network-Africa has issued a press release praising the South African government’s commitment to register and make public the “beneficial owners” of all companies incorporated in the country. “Beneficial owners” are those who ultimately benefit from a company. In many countries, governments do not require such information, resulting in anonymously owned companies that may be used by corrupt politicians or others who want to hide their identity. The “Panama Papers” highlight the role such companies play in activities ranging from money laundering to tax evasion. The South African government’s announcement was made on the margins of the Africa regional meeting of the Open Government Partnership. It includes reference to the register being available to the public, not just the authorities. Denise Dube Mubaiwa, of Economic Justice Network of the Fellowship of Christian Councils in Southern Africa, commented, “Public registers give investigators, journalists, civil society, and the general public the tools necessary to peel back the layers of secrecy that anonymous companies create.” She called on the Zuma administration to send to parliament quickly the necessary draft legislation. Former South African President Thabo Mbeki chaired in 2015 the High Level Panel on Illicit Financial Flows from Africa. The panel urged governments to create public registers of beneficial ownership. The panel estimated that Africa loses some $50 billion every year through illicit financial flows. The Open Government Partnership presses governments to promote transparency and good governance. Some sixty-nine governments now participate. However, sub-Saharan Africa is underrepresented. In addition to South Africa, only Malawi, Tanzania, Kenya, Ghana, Benin, Ivory Coast, and Sierra Leone participate. Notably absent is Nigeria, which U.K. Prime Minister David Cameron has artlessly characterized as one of the most corrupt countries in the world. Nigeria is ostensibly the largest economy in Africa and in the midst of a major anti-corruption drive sponsored by President Muhammadu Buhari.

Tyler Falish is an intern for the Council on Foreign Relations Africa Studies program, and a student in Fordham University’s Graduate Program in International Political Economy & Development. South African President Jacob Zuma was in Iran for a two-day state visit on April 24 and 25. While in Tehran, Zuma and Iranian President Hassan Rouhani signed eight bilateral trade agreements as part of a commitment to increase non-oil trade between the two countries. Trade between the two nations plummeted after the imposition of expanded sanctions on Iran by the U.S., EU, and UN. According to UN Comtrade, in 2012—the most recent year of significant trade between the two countries—trade was valued at approximately $1.3 billion. By comparison, bilateral trade in 2015 totaled only $30 million. Iran has strong ties with the ruling African National Congress (ANC), and the Islamic republic was among the first to resume trade with South Africa following the end of white minority rule. The strong trade relationship has been largely imbalanced, skewed heavily toward the import of Iranian crude oil into South Africa. Prior to sanctions, South Africa imported 380,000 barrels per day from Iran, accounting for one-third of Africa’s second-largest crude consumer’s demand. With the Iranian supply abruptly severed in late-2012, South Africa turned to Saudi Arabia and Nigeria to meet growing demand. As South Africa resumes its trading relationship with Iran following the lifting of sanctions, Nigeria will be the big loser, as the South African Petroleum Industry Association recently announced they will “likely stop importing crude from Nigeria.” This is woeful news at a time when the Nigerian economy is already reeling from a steep decline in oil revenue. On April 27, Deputy Director General Tseliso Maqubela of the energy ministry announced potential plans to build an oil refinery to process Iranian crude oil. Although South African refineries were originally designed to process Iranian crude oil, they were necessarily retrofitted to refine other types of crude in the wake of the sanctions. With no stated estimate on the time frame or cost of such a project, the country will be forced to rely on foreign-owned oil refineries in South Africa when Iranian crude imports resume. South Africa is the main supplier of liquid fuels—including petrol and diesel—to Botswana, Lesotho, Namibia, and Swaziland. Although South Africa has among the highest refining capacity on the continent, continuing to meet growing domestic fuel demand will remain a priority and a challenge. Expanding capacity through the construction of the proposed refinery will present an opportunity for increasing exports—and influence—within the region and beyond.

South Africa’s High Court has ruled against the president yet again. It has determined that the prosecutor’s decision to drop 783 charges of corruption against Zuma should be reviewed. According to the BBC, Judge Aubrey Ledwaba characterized the 2009 decision to drop the charges as “irrational.” The ruling allows the National Prosecuting Authority to reinstate the charges, though it is unclear whether it will do so. Nevertheless, once again, South Africa’s judiciary has demonstrated its independence from the executive. Among South Africans concerned with advancing good government and maintaining the country’s celebrated constitution, the high court’s ruling is another political wound for Zuma. Predictably, the Democratic Alliance (DA) has again called on Zuma to resign. However, as the BBC’s Pumza Fihlani points out, the ruling has little impact on Zuma’s core constituency, the rural poor. Zuma has carefully tended to his base through patronage networks. His governing African National Congress (ANC), too, is dependent on the votes of the rural poor for its huge parliamentary majority. For rural ANC voters, legal questions and court decisions are remote; like the rural poor elsewhere, many are seeking merely to get from today to tomorrow. They are buffeted by changes ranging from the country’s rapid urbanization to the persistence of southern Africa’s worst drought in many years. Many of them, especially the Zulu, about a quarter of South Africa’s population, identify culturally with Zuma, who plays to ethnic politics and is an open polygamist, having fathered at least twenty-two children. For many rural, poor South Africans, Zuma is a champion. Within the ANC, no president is all-powerful; the party removed Zuma’s predecessor Thabo Mbeki from the party leadership and from the presidency. Despite the court ruling, the only practical way Zuma could be removed from office is if the ANC leadership concludes that he has become a major electoral liability. South Africa has local elections in August. If the DA and the other leading opposition party, the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF), do well, the ANC may conclude that Zuma must go, despite his strength in rural areas. The DA has its eyes on Johannesburg and the Port Elizabeth metro area, parts of the increasingly urban South Africa. The EFF looks to increase its votes in the urban townships. Up to now, the principal predictor of voting behavior has been race. The ANC has been the “black” political party, and the DA is still perceived by many as “white.” It is by no means certain that the ANC will do badly. South Africa is a constitutional democracy. The powers of all elements of government are constrained by the constitution. But, to some spokesmen for the poor, constitutionalism is seen as a brake on the radical restructuring of the country that is required to lift the black majority out of poverty. At least some of them would like to move South Africa toward a parliamentary democracy in which there are few constraints on the parliamentary majority enjoyed by the ANC. However, South Africa’s constitution is very popular. It is identified with the end of apartheid and Nelson Mandela; it has even become an element of South African national identity. Such factors will make changing the constitution difficult.

This is a guest post by Allen Grane, research associate for the Council on Foreign Relations Africa Studies program. The South African government has announced that it will not petition the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) for a legal trade in rhinoceros horn. South Africa formed a committee to determine the viability of a legal trade in rhino horn in February 2015. After nearly a year of deliberating, the committee’s recommendation was “that the current mode of keeping the country’s stock levels be kept as opposed to the trading in rhino horns.” The decision, announced before the 17th CITES Conference of the Parties meeting in South Africa this fall, is surprising. The South African government owns a stockpile of rhino horn that is valued at approximately $2 billion on the black market, an amount that could contribute to the struggling South African economy. While South Africa will not be seeking to sell their rhino horn stockpile now, it is not clear if that policy will continue forever. When and if poaching in South Africa stabilizes, the government may then reevaluate its position. As private citizens are allowed to own rhinos in South Africa, there are a number of private parties who have also harvested rhino horn. These private parties, some with stockpiles worth hundreds of millions of dollars, will likely continue to push for a legalized trade. Others have argued, and will continue to argue, that if the South African government were to allow the sale of current rhino horn stockpiles, the price of rhino horn would plummet, decreasing the incentive for people to poach rhinos. This of course, is theory, and can’t be proven until tested. The decision seems to be summed up by the World Wildlife Funds statement that they “do not believe that a well-managed legal trade is feasible without negative impacts for wild rhinos at this time.” The South African government stated that its “strategic approach entails security; community empowerment; biological management and responsive legislative provisions that are effectively implemented and enforced; and demand management.” As part of this approach, the South African government will often harvest rhino horns to protect animals from being poached. This will continue, and the government’s stockpile will continue to grow.

This is a guest post by Allen Grane, research associate for the Council on Foreign Relations Africa Studies program. In early April, South Africa issued its first sovereign bond in over two years. The ten-year, $1.25 billion bond was oversubscribed by a factor of two. This is the first international bond issued by a sub-Saharan African nation in 2016. It is likely to be followed by Kenyan, Nigerian, and Ghanaian issuances. The past two years were the most active in the history of sub-Saharan Africa’s sovereign bond issuances. But, due to the state of international markets in 2016, the price of issuing bonds has been too high (near and above 10 percent) for most African countries. These sub-Saharan countries are now trying to take advantage of an momentary upswing in emerging markets, translating to potentially cheaper issuances. Because these ‘cheaper issuances’ are still high comparative to current U.S. rates, there is significant interest in sub-Saharan markets. South Africa took full advantage of this interest, and issued its bond during what might be a brief calm in the storm. After months of political uncertainty, including the potential impeachment of South African President Jacob Zuma, the rand (South Africa’s national currency) rallied to a four-month high. The bond was also issued before a potential rating downgrade. (It is feared that Standard & Poor may soon lower South Africa’s rating to junk status). These factors allowed the South African Treasury to issue their recent bond at a relatively low rate (for sub-Saharan Africa) of 4.875 percent. Other sub-Saharan nations are not likely to get such a low rate. The Kenyan Treasury was recently in London trying to gauge interest in a potential $600 million Eurobond issuance. It is rumored that they are looking to obtain a coupon rate of 8.25 percent (nearly twice that of South Africa). Along with this possible bond issuance, Kenya is concluding a $600 million loan agreement with China. Ghana has also recently met with investors in London. There is talk that it is hoping to raise up to $1 billion. Though the rate for this potential offering is unknown, Ghana’s last bond issuance in October 2015 was at a coupon rate of 10.75 percent. Nigeria, facing an $11 billion budget deficit, needs to raise money, but with the drastic decrease in oil revenue, it can’t afford to issue bonds at such high rates. In addition, the decreasing value of the naira (Nigeria’s national currency) makes it impractical to issue debt in the stronger dollar and euro markets. But, despite the obstacles, the Nigerian government believes that it must build out the country’s infrastructure if it is to develop a more diverse economy. As a result, the Nigerian government is looking for the “cheapest possible money” and turning to other markets—such as those of the Japanese and Chinese—to issue debt. There is talk that Nigeria may issue a renminbi (China’s national currency) denominated bond on the Chinese domestic market, a so-called ‘panda’ bond. If this were to happen, Nigeria would be the second country, after South Korea, to do so. Despite the current reprieve in emerging markets, the majority of sub-Saharan countries are facing a financial market that makes it extremely costly to borrow. At the same time many of these countries are at a critical juncture where they must invest in public works and infrastructure projects to further develop their economies. Because of this, we are likely to see other African states emulate Nigeria and turn to new and innovative ways to raise capital.

This is a guest post by Allen Grane, research associate for the Council on Foreign Relations Africa Studies program. In recent years, southern Africa has been the last bastion for elephant protection. Countries such as Botswana, Namibia, South Africa, Zambia, and Zimbabwe have been regarded as the leaders of elephant conservation in Africa. While countries like the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Tanzania have seen substantial decreases in their elephant populations, many southern African countries have seen an increase in their numbers. In this light, it is all the more worrying that certain areas of southern Africa are being targeted by elephant poachers. The first sign was in South Africa’s famed Kruger National Park in May 2014. For the first time in over ten years, poachers entered the park with the intent of killing an elephant for its tusks and succeeded. (While South Africa’s elephants have been relatively safe over recent years, its rhinoceros population is under serious threat.) By the end of 2015, the number of elephants poached in Kruger had reached twenty. Compared to the thousands killed in Tanzania this number is small, but it is worrying, nevertheless. Perhaps more alarming is a recent study conducted by the Great Elephant Census in Zambia. While the elephant population across that country is stable, the southern regions of Zambia have witnessed declining numbers due to poaching. Sioma Ngwezi National Park in particular has seen a catastrophic decline in its elephants. In fact, the survey only identified 48 live elephants compared to 280 elephant carcasses. Sioma Ngwezi is in the southwestern corner of Zambia, bordering Angola and Namibia, and just over forty miles from Botswana. The potential for poachers to move between countries and parks is very high, which could place populations in all four countries at risk. The southern African country of Mozambique, which has seen high levels of poaching, has faced its greatest threat of poaching in Niassa National Park, a park that has a common border with Tanzania. Until now the great success of southern African countries has been due to their willingness to prioritize conservation and protect their elephant populations. Unfortunately, these countries don’t have the resources to train and equip their park services and rangers to cover all of their territory, meaning that there will always be ‘safe zones’ where poachers can operate with near impunity. Until the market for illicit elephant ivory is eliminated, it is likely that we will continue to see these poaching hotspots, despite the hard work of local governments and conservationists.