Zabelo Hlabisa was crowned Miss Earth South Africa 2023 at the finale of the national pageant on Saturday, 9th September 2023 at Sandton Southern Sun in Johannesburg. Zabelo Hlabisa will now prepare to represent South Africa at Miss Earth 2023.

Zabelo Hlabisa is a 29-year-old entrepreneur and model hailing from Newcastle in KwaZulu-Natal. She succeeds and was crowned by Miss Earth South Africa 2022 Ziphozethu Sithebe.

Not new to the pageant world, Zabelo was previously crowned Miss Heritage South Africa 2022 and represented her country at Miss Heritage Global 2022 in Limpopo where she finished as the second runner-up.

The newly crowned Miss Earth South Africa 2023 Zabelo Hlabisa’s elemental court included –

Miss Air – First Runner-up – Belinde Schreuder

Miss Water – Second Runner-up – Duduzile Mbobo

Miss Fire – Third Runner-up – Zama Mbatha

On winning the national crown, Zabelo Hlabisa took to her official social media to share her feelings in a post captioned, "Guys please tell me I'm dreaming. Am I even supposed to say something at this point? If YES, what do I say?"

Miss Earth 2023, the 23rd edition of Miss Earth, will be held in Vietnam on 16th December 2023 where Miss Earth 2022 Mina Sue Choi of South Korea will crown her successor at the end of the event finale. The theme of this year’s Miss Earth edition is ME Loves TREE.