The latest WWF Living Planet Index indicates that South Africa, together with other developing countries is experiencing the highest levels of species extinctions. The Red List of South African Plants, launched by the South African Biodiversity Institute (SANBI), within the financial year under review also quotes alarming statistics. The department though, is not providing the interventions and strategies to curb these trends but rather concerned with achieving targets that have no relevance to ensuring that natural resources are used sustainably. The challenges and constraints in drafting and implementing Biodiversity Management Plans, Bioregional Plans and Conservation Plans to ensure effective decision making on the conservation of South Africa's unique and important biodiversity is severely lacking. Impoverished communities rely on natural resources for the basic food requirements and medicinal needs and these are not addressed in this programme. As a signatory to the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), South Africa has an obligation to conduct a biodiversity inventory and have mechanisms in place to address impacts associated with over harvesting and other unsustainable practices. The current trends indicate that as a nation we are increasing our ecological footprint so drastically that many of our endemic (occurring no where else in the world) species are listed as threatened due to poor land-use management decisions and unsustainable practices.