Question NW631 to the Minister of Environmental Affairs

Reply:

a) The Department is responsible for the maintenance of the Register of Protected Areas. The Register has 934 Nature Reserves that are privately owned, totaling 1.91 million ha. Game Farms are not a type of protected area according to the National Environmental Management: Protected Areas Act, 2003, and are therefore not captured as such. Game Farms are, in the main, covered within the mandate of DAFF, and further information in this regard should be requested from DAFF.

b) (i)(ii) The Department has not conducted any assessment to ascertain the number, location and average size of privately-owned game farms in the country. However, according to the research conducted by ABSA in 2013 it was found that commercial/private wildlife ranches covered 16.8% of the country's landmass, covering approximately 20,5 million hectare encompassing just over 9000 wildlife ranches.

More information can be obtained from the research conducted in 2001 to determine the extent or the footprint of game farming in the country. According to this research it was estimated that there were 5,061 wildlife ranches in South Africa covering an area of 103,642 km2 (Bothma, 2005). The Limpopo province contained 2,482 of these wildlife ranches covering an area of 33,257 km2 (Bothma, 2005). Limpopo dominates, with 50% of ranches; Northern Cape - 20%; Eastern Cape - 12%; and other remaining Provinces - 18%.

Below is a table depicting provincial distribution and extent of privately-owned game farms in 2001:

PROVINCE	NO OF WILDLIFE PRODUCTION UNITS (GAME FARMS)	% OF TOTAL WILDLIFE PRODUCTION	AREA(HA)	% OF TOTAL AREA
Free State	180	3.56	147743	1.43
Limpopo	2482	49.04	3325652	32.09
North West	340	6.72	364935	3.52
Mpumalanga	205	4.05	276016	2.66
Gauteng	72	1.42	82076	0.79
KwaZulu Natal	90	1.78	168841	1.63
Eastern Cape	624	12.33	881633	8.51
Northern Cape	986	19.48	4852053	46.82
Western Cape	82	1.62	265205	2.56
Total	5061	100	10364154	100

Source: Bothma (2005)

(iii) The Department has not undertaken an exercise to determine the Rand value of each game farm in the country. However, the Rand value of each game farm depends on the amount invested towards acquiring land possessing conducive ecological infrastructure to support game animals and the size, the quality, type and size of game fence, number of game species and animals in the farm, existing infrastructural developments such as water reticulation, accommodation, roadways, permits and the ability to attract the targeted market. In view of this, the Rand value of each game farm can only be determined on a case by case basis.

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