{"id":205238,"date":"2025-08-22T17:31:08","date_gmt":"2025-08-22T15:31:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/africa-news\/southern-africa\/lesotho\/lesothos-outdated-laws-fail-to-protect-threatened-plant-species\/"},"modified":"2025-08-22T17:31:08","modified_gmt":"2025-08-22T15:31:08","slug":"lesothos-outdated-laws-fail-to-protect-threatened-plant-species","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/africa-news\/southern-africa\/lesotho\/lesothos-outdated-laws-fail-to-protect-threatened-plant-species\/","title":{"rendered":"Lesotho&#8217;s Outdated Laws Fail to Protect Threatened Plant Species"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><\/p>\n<div>\n<p class=\"story-body-text\" data-para-word-count=\"11\"><em> Maximum fine of R200 hasn&#8217;t been updated since 1967 <\/em><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>An unregulated trade in pelargonium, a protected species, is causing environmental destruction across Lesotho.<\/strong><\/li>\n<li><strong>Five people were recently found guilty of illegally dealing in pelargonium. They were fined M200 (equivalent to R200).<\/strong><\/li>\n<li><strong>In a scathing judgment, magistrate Thabang Tapole found serious flaws in the government&#8217;s permitting system and said laws should be updated to effectively deter people from breaking environmental laws.<\/strong><\/li>\n<li><strong>He also&#8230;<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/div>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/allafrica.com\/stories\/202508220052.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Read more on AllAfrica.com<\/a><br \/>\n<br \/>South Africa Today Africa \u2013 Southern Africa <a title=\"Lesotho\" href=\"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/africa-news\/category\/southern-africa\/lesotho\/\">Lesotho<\/a> News<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Maximum fine of R200 hasn&#8217;t been updated since 1967 An unregulated trade in pelargonium, a protected species, is causing environmental destruction across Lesotho. Five people were recently found guilty of illegally dealing in pelargonium. They were fined M200 (equivalent to R200). In a scathing judgment, magistrate Thabang Tapole found serious flaws in the government&#8217;s permitting [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":205239,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"tdm_status":"","tdm_grid_status":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/cdn.allafrica.com\/download\/pic\/main\/main\/csiid\/00671233:79c3883747a0ac52c32bc4d97ee230a7:arc614x376:w1200.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1406],"tags":[258,256,6900,5040,1407,9990,257,29685,8489,6202,254,20866,6702],"class_list":["post-205238","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-lesotho","tag-africa","tag-africa-news","tag-fail","tag-laws","tag-lesotho-news","tag-lesothos","tag-news","tag-outdated","tag-plant","tag-protect","tag-south-africa-today","tag-species","tag-threatened"],"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/cdn.allafrica.com\/download\/pic\/main\/main\/csiid\/00671233:79c3883747a0ac52c32bc4d97ee230a7:arc614x376:w1200.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/africa-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/205238","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/africa-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/africa-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/africa-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/11"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/africa-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=205238"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/africa-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/205238\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/africa-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/205239"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/africa-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=205238"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/africa-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=205238"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/africa-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=205238"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}