Lesotho’s outdated laws fail to protect threatened plant species

In March, five people were arrested and two trucks carrying hundreds of bags of pelargonium were seized by Lesotho’s police and Environmental Crime Unit. The trucks were surrounded by dozens of villagers attempting to sell their harvested pelargonium.

Editor: Pelargonium used in Europe to treat the common cold and bronchitis. In laboratory studies, this herb was shown to kill bacteria, viruses, and stimulate the immune system. Human studies show that it can reduce the symptoms of common cold and bronchitis.

• 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’s permitting system and said laws should be updated to effectively deter people from breaking environmental laws.
• He also highlighted how local harvesters are paid “peanuts” for a product that sells at high prices internationally.

The arrest and prosecution of five people in Lesotho for illegally trading pelargonium has exposed deep shortcomings in the government’s ability to protect threatened plant species.

Pelargonium sidoides – commonly known as African or South African geranium – grows wild in Lesotho’s rocky, high-altitude soil. It is in high demand internationally for use as a herbal medicine, including in some cough syrups. It was declared a protected species by the Lesotho government in 2004.

But laws governing the environment are outdated, with the maximum penalty for environmental crimes at M200 (equivalent to R200) since 1967.

The pelargonium permitting system is inefficient: many permits issued exceed the legislated limits, and some permits do not even include quotas. The permit regulations are rarely enforced.

When South Africa restricted the wild harvesting of pelargonium from 2007, the trade shifted to Lesotho, where enforcement is weaker. Between 2023 and 2025, Lesotho issued 37 harvesting permits allowing nearly 1,000 tonnes of pelargonium to be taken from the wild.

But many of the permits listed in the Department of Environment’s records, which GroundUp has seen, do not even include a limit to the quantity the companies can harvest.

In May this year, GroundUp visited Semokong in Topa village, where the effects of unregulated pelargonium harvesting are visible.

Chiefs and villagers across eight surrounding villages described how harvesters dig up the roots with picks and shovels, leaving deep, open holes on steep slopes and dug-up soil prone to erosion.

“Everyone does as they please… they have now damaged the rest of this mountain,” said Puseletso Sello from Ha Elia (a village). “They don’t even listen when we tell them to put back the soil after harvesting the roots.”

Chief Motlalekhosi Letsie said he had initially tolerated buyers arriving in his village and buying without his approval. But when they returned repeatedly with truckloads of roots, he felt compelled to act.

“On the third visit, the police intervened, arresting the buyers for having no permits and failing to report to the chief,” he said.

Five arrests

Khautu Lesoli, who for six years has run a business buying pelargonium from local harvesters and selling it to international companies, was one of five people arrested and accused of illegal harvesting in March.

He was found purchasing pelargonium from local villagers in an area not allowed by his permit and in quantities that exceeded his quota.

Four employees of the South African company Rosehip Farm, to which Lesoli was selling the pelargonium, were also prosecuted. Two of Rosehip Farm’s trucks, carrying 376 bags of pelargonium, were impounded by police and the Environmental Crime Unit.

At the time of the arrests, one of the vehicles was surrounded by dozens of villagers who were delivering to Lesoli.

M200 fines

All five of the accused pleaded guilty to dealing in protected flora without authorisation. Magistrate Thabang Tapole imposed the maximum sentence available under the Historical Monuments, Relics, Fauna and Flora Act of 1967: a fine of M200 or six months in jail.

Tapole condemned the law as outdated, calling the penalty an incentive for offenders to keep breaking the law. The law has not been updated since 1967, when M200 was the equivalent of about M20,000 today.

“Surely the threat of sanction provided by the 1967 M200 can hardly still be meaningful today, almost 60 years down the line,” Tapole wrote.

He ordered the seized pelargonium to be replanted in Tšehlanyane National Park at the expense of the accused. Rosehip Farm’s trucks were to be used for transporting the plants before being released. He also directed the offenders to repair environmental damage in Topa.

He also highlighted how poverty drives villagers to accept meagre payments for their harvested pelargonium. Some earned as little as M22, while the highest payment was M1,197.

“Peanuts,” the magistrate called it, for a plant whose extracts sell for high prices abroad.

The confiscated pelargonium was replanted in Tšehlanyane National Park. Photo: Sechaba Mokhethi

Permitting system failures

Tapole found that the quantity on Lesoli’s permit exceeded thresholds that required an Environmental Impact Assessment. But no such assessment was ever conducted, nor was there a written exemption from the Director of Environment, as required by law.

The permit form was incomplete: entire sections on harvesting methods, ecosystem impacts, and conservation measures had been left blank.

Tapole called this omission “particularly glaring”, given the visible “grave destruction” on slopes left vulnerable to erosion.

Director of the Department of Environment Qongqong Hoohlo admitted to GroundUp that permits were issued against the legal requirements, allowing quantities that required EIAs without following procedures.

“It must have been an oversight,” she said.

Hoohlo said the department would review the judgment and push for stricter coordination with the secretariat. She also called for legal reforms, pointing to the long-delayed Biodiversity Resources Management Bill, drafted in 2020 but repeatedly stalled by political instability and parliamentary dissolutions.

The bill, now awaiting the Attorney General’s clearance, would introduce stronger penalties and ensure communities share in the benefits.

Free for all

Lesoli told GroundUp he was under pressure from the Rosehip Farm to supply amounts above the allowance on his permits. He says the Rosehip Farm was in possession of his permits and knew what his quota was.

“When we started, I was giving him three to four tonnes per week. He then told me of his need to get another supplier as his demand was growing,” Lesoli recalled.

Fearing competition, Lesoli increased his supply to as much as eight tonnes weekly. The only way to keep up, he said, was to stretch his permits beyond their legal limits.

“We would just acquire one permit for a specific area and use it everywhere across the country. That is how we used to operate,” he admitted.

In court, the company’s owner Wynand Gericke insisted he was merely an “innocent owner” and had no knowledge of any illegality as he sought the release of his impounded trucks.

Gericke later told GroundUp that Lesoli was “at no point … coerced, misled, or placed under duress by our company.”

He did admit, however, that the Rosehip Farm had copies of Lesoli’s permits and other cargo delivery documents showing where the pelargonium was harvested.

Because permits were kept in Johannesburg office while consignments arrived in the Free State, Gericke said staff did not verify products from suppliers against import permits or village verification lists. “This was one of the processes we needed to improve as a result of this incident.”

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