BY ROSS HARVEY

“A classic example of entrenched white privilege is the Associated Private Nature Reserves in South Africa, bordering the world-renown Kruger National Park.

The six private reserves each comprise a number of different private owners and farms. By 1996, these reserves had almost no elephants left as they had been hunted to near extinction. The fences were dropped in 1993, before the end of apartheid, on the premise of creating ‘ecological unity’ between the APNR and the KNP.

Far from creating ecological unity, however, these wild animals are treated as ‘res nullius’, nobody’s property, in the APNR and are hunted. In 2019 the APNR approved the commercial hunting of 47 elephant bulls.

These animals are part of the country’s national heritage but are permitted to be shot by foreign trophy hunters for the benefit of a small number of wealthy white landowners. Tellingly, governance breaches in the APNR abound. How much money actually accrues to the local communities remains unknown due to a lack of transparency in the industry.”

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