Agriculture Minister John Steenhuisen's move suggests that, when forced to choose, the DA leadership is more worried about hunters and wildlife ranchers than about lions in cages and a country's integrity on the world stage. Agriculture Minister John Steenhuisen wants President Cyril Ramaphosa to fire Minister of Forestry, Fisheries and the Environment Dion George and replace him with DA national spokesperson Willie Aucamp. On paper, it's just another reshuffle request in a fragile Government of National Unity. In reality, it looks a lot like a calculated move to drag the environment portfolio back into the arms of South Africa's powerful hunting and wildlife trade lobby. Strip away the spin and the timing is impossible to ignore. George is the first environment minister in years to meaningfully move against South Africa's shameful captive lion industry and the associated lion bone trade. Under his watch, the Department of Forestry, Fisheries and the Environment (DFFE) has initiated voluntary exit pathways for lion bone stockpiles, frozen the establishment of new captive lion breeding facilities, and pushed the lion bone export quota to zero. These are not baby steps; they go to the heart of a lucrative, deeply controversial industry that has long held South African wildlife policy hostage. This is precisely the context in which Steenhuisen's request lands. It is also why the EMS Foundation – one of the country's leading voices on the lion bone trade – has sounded a very loud alarm. In a letter to DA MP and environmental spokesperson Andrew de Blocq in June this year, the EMS Foundation laid out the DA's growing credibility crisis in stark terms. On 16 November 2024, De Blocq publicly welcomed George's moves against canned lion hunting and the lion bone trade, acknowledging that these industries face serious ethical and regulatory problems and have drawn international condemnation. The DA, at that point, positioned itself as a party that understood the reputational and moral cost of turning lions into skeletons for export.