South Africa rejects appeal against export of five baobabs to Georgia

South Africa's Department of Forestry, Fisheries and the Environment (DFFE) has rejected an appeal filed by the exporting company Divine Landscapes and has confirmed its refusal to allow the export of five giant baobabs to Georgia. According to the agency, the five hundred-year-old trees, which have been standing in a parking lot in Durban for three months, were removed from the ground without the necessary permits, and their removal from the country is illegal.

Company head Corne Mare does not specify who the trees were being sent to. However, according to the official DFFE statement, Georgia was indicated as the final destination of the seized cargo.

The South African publication Daily Maverick suggests that the final buyer of the baobabs is billionaire Bidzina Ivanishvili. The publication links this to several indirect circumstances: eight baobabs brought from Kenya to the Shekvetili Dendrological Park founded by him dried up recently, which is also confirmed by photos uploaded to Google Maps by visitors. It is presumed that attempts have begun to replace them with new South African specimens. According to Daily Maverick, apart from Ivanishvili, there is no other private individual in Georgia with botanical interests of such scale and financial resources. The publication tried to contact Ivanishvili's side and obtain a comment, including through a lawyer and the embassy, but was unable to do so.

A criminal case has been opened against Mare in South Africa. His lawyers insist that the trees were legally purchased from private owners and were not dug out of the wild, but they refuse to disclose the identity of the final client. Experts say that the baobabs, lying horizontally on the asphalt near the Durban port, will die in the near future unless they are immediately planted back into the soil.

The eight baobabs brought to the Shekvetili Dendrological Park and planted in November 2023 dried up in August 2024. The park administration blamed political opponents for the death of the plants.

Ivanishvili brought the baobabs from Kenya. According to The Guardian, at least eight trees were sold by local farmers from private land for $800 to $2,400 each. In November 2022, Kenya's Ministry of Environment revoked the license that would have allowed a foreign company to dig up eight baobabs and take them to Georgia. The decision followed a request from the president to the ministry to check the process of digging up the trees in Kilifi County. The ministry then stated that the trees should not be exported until agreements between the parties were properly regulated and harmonized with international documents on biodiversity and access to genetic resources.

Members of the Kenyan parliament have launched an investigation into the export of baobabs to Georgia. According to local media, they accuse three state agencies of a lack of transparency and corruption in the sale of the trees. Environmental advocates called the export "biopiracy". In February 2023, the Kenyan government finally issued the disputed export permit.

The Shekvetili Dendrological Park was started on Ivanishvili's initiative in 2016 and opened to the public in July 2020.