Abstract
The South African agricultural landscape has seen tremendous changes since the fall of apartheid. Many agricultural landscapes have undergone a widespread conversion of land reserved for livestock farming towards private protected areas. This conversion created a consumptive and non-consumptive-oriented economy that includes wildlife tourism, ecotourism, hunting tourism, breeding and the selling of byproducts of wildlife. This process has been praised for its economic and environmental benefits, but also criticised for its impact on land reform and livelihood strategies. No recent academic analysis has been conducted on this phenomenon. Therefore, this paper will address this research gap by providing fine-grained data on the geography and size of privately owned protected areas in South Africa. This research will allow the government, the private sector, and researchers to view this phenomenon accurately and address its positive and negative aspects in an informed manner.