South Africa's Minister of Forestry, Fisheries and the Environment, Barbara Creecy, gave the go-ahead for a wildlife-shooting spree on a "game reserve" in the Eastern Cape. This hunting safari was made up of about 200 citizens from the United Arab Emirates backed up by so-called professional hunters. The visitors were allowed to enter the country without fulfilling any immigration and customs controls and thereafter were at liberty to slaughter animals on the reserve, like shooting fish in a barrel. South Africa's sovereignty has been damaged but worse still, sentient animals have been butchered for "recreational" purposes.

This is the latest example of Creecy not only failing to protect the environment and its citizens - South Africa's fauna and flora - but also of actively facilitating their plunder and ruin. Creecy cannot be allowed to remain in office and wilfully interpret her portfolio as selling the environment to the highest bidder.

If South Africa is to preserve some of its land, air and marine environment, and the wildlife in those spheres, it is essential that Creecy be removed from office now. Far from being a guardian of forestry, fisheries and the environment, Creecy acts against all those supposedly in her care. The trees, the birds of the air, the fish of the waters, the animals of the land, the grasses of the plains, the environment as a whole - and the people who interact with it - will all be safer for Creecy's removal.