Did baboon activists in Cape Town win their December 2024 court case?

It has been widely reported in the media that pro-baboon groupings in Cape Town’s South Peninsula won an important victory late last year, following litigation against three authorities who share responsibility for baboon management (the City of Cape Town, SANParks and CapeNature).

But is this true? This article attempts to shed some light on the matter.

In April 2024 a court application was lodged by Ryno Engelbrecht, Baboon Matters, Beauty Without Cruelty and Jo-Anne Trennith Bosman, requesting the Western Cape High Court to order the Cape Peninsula Baboon Management Joint Task Team (JTT) to take a variety of actions. It was widely understood as an attempt to use the courts to hold slow-moving government entities to account for a steadily worsening situation on the ground.

Eight months later, on 6 December 2024, after no public information about the case from either side, a court order was signed by a high court judge. It recorded that the application had been withdrawn by agreement between the applicants and the first three respondents (the city, CapeNature and SANParks, which together comprise the JTT).



The order noted that these three government entities had formed the JTT in 2023 to share responsibility for baboon management and then listed the most strategic actions the JTT was already undertaking to that end, in line with their founding 2023 strategy document. Nothing in the order suggests that these actions were prompted by the court application. 

The same day that the court action was withdrawn by the applicants, the JTT issued a media statement. It welcomed the decision by the applicants to withdraw their litigation but noted that “it is unfortunate that this litigation … came at a great cost in terms of time, money, and human resources while the JTT was already making significant strides in laying a sound foundation for the implementation of the Baboon Strategic Management Plan”.

Also released on 6 December was a media statement from Advocates for Justice for Baboons and Communities, a group representing the applicants. It asserted that “the Order includes all the relief sought in the Applicants’ Application and as a result of this settlement the Applicants have withdrawn their Application”. Furthermore, “The Applicants are satisfied to have obtained the Order and will monitor the implementation and progress of the Solutions closely and all their rights in this regard are reserved”.

This media release and subsequent social media posts by the applicants characterised the court order as a “huge win for baboons and communities” since the order “records the duty of the City of Cape Town, SANParks and CapeNature to finance and implement the Solutions… It is the first time in 24 years that all three authorities have accepted responsibility through a legally binding order and the Court Order will now hold them accountable to implementation of solutions.”

We succeeded in sourcing a copy of the court order inserted above from the respondents (JTT) only on 20 January 2025. The applicants have not shared it publicly. We were recently informed by a source close to the court action on the respondents’ side that the applicants themselves (Ryno Engelbrecht et al) had unsuccessfully requested the court to make the order confidential.

If you read the court order you will see that it does not contain the terms “accountable”, “duty” or “requirement”; nor does it refer to any form of “relief”. Indeed, it makes no mention of the specific actions requested by the applicants (other than the minor matter of the extension of the ranger programme for the month of December 2024).

Because neither of us is a lawyer, we asked a reputable advocate for their opinion of the order. Their response:

“It is not uncommon, when a party agrees to withdraw an application, that it does so on the basis that the court will be asked to record any undertakings that have been made. That does not mean that the court has ordered the other party [in this case, the JTT] to do the things that are listed. If it does not do what it said it would do, this would not constitute contempt of court… the order does not legally oblige the respondent to do these things”.