The truth about the false narrative of South Africa’s ‘wildlife miracle’

South Africa has become highly skilled at telling conservation success stories. Few are repeated more confidently than that of the bontebok: a subspecies reduced to just 17 animals in the 1930s, now numbering more than 10,000 nationwide. The narrative is so reassuring that in 2025 South Africa successfully proposed the removal of bontebok from CITES Appendix II, arguing that international trade controls were no longer necessary.

It is presented as proof that the country’s wildlife model works – that private ownership, market incentives and fenced management can deliver both economic return and ecological recovery.

But the bontebok story does not demonstrate that conservation is working. It demonstrates how conservation has been redefined.

The national population figures conceal a stark ecological reality. Fewer than 2,500 bontebok survive within their natural and extended natural range in the Western Cape, in the renosterveld and grassy fynbos ecosystems to which the species is endemic. More than 80% of optimal bontebok habitat in that region has been irreversibly transformed by agriculture and development. Much of what remains is classified as critically endangered or endangered. The population within its ecological context has effectively plateaued, with little realistic prospect for expansion.

The remainder – more than 70% of South Africa’s bontebok – live outside their endemic ecosystem. They exist primarily on private land in the Eastern Cape, Free State and Northern Cape, often in small fenced herds managed for trophy hunting, live sales and breeding value. On paper, they count the same as animals in the Western Cape. Ecologically, they do not.

Bontebok are not simply antelope with a headcount. They are selective grazers that evolved within a highly specific lowland system shaped by fire regimes, seasonal rainfall patterns, soil composition and plant communities that no longer exist at scale. Their ecological role – influencing vegetation structure, nutrient cycling and plant succession – is inseparable from that landscape. Extralimital populations may ensure the subspecies persists, but they do not restore renosterveld, nor do they replace the ecological processes that have been lost.

The species survives. Their ecosystem does not.

The legal architecture behind the model

This disconnect between survival and ecological recovery is not accidental. It is rooted in the legal structure that underpins South Africa’s wildlife economy.

The Game Theft Act of 1991 fundamentally altered the common-law treatment of wild animals. Under Roman-Dutch law, wild animals were regarded as res nullius – belonging to no one – and ownership depended on physical control. Once an animal escaped and regained its natural freedom, ownership was lost. The 1991 Act created an exception: if wildlife is kept on sufficiently enclosed land, ownership is not lost when animals escape. A fence became more than a management tool. It became the mechanism by which wildlife is transformed into private property.

That shift laid the foundation for what is now a vast wildlife ranching sector. About 9,000 privately owned game farms cover up to 20 million hectares – about 15% of South Africa’s land surface – and hold millions of animals. Wildlife is no longer simply part of a shared ecological commons. It is a form of inventory.

Production masquerading as protection

The economic logic that drives this system is often presented as pragmatic: attach value to wildlife and landowners will protect it. Numbers of certain species – those deemed to have economic value – have increased under private management. But numbers alone are not the same as conservation.

Canned lion hunting offers a stark example. For years, lions were bred in captivity, habituated to humans and then shot in enclosed camps. These animals did not contribute to functioning ecosystems or support wild lion landscapes. They were produced to meet demand. Yet the system operated under the banner of sustainable use and conservation.

Rhinos illustrate a similar trajectory. In many cases they have become intensively managed biological assets. Breeding programmes, dehorning, armed security and speculative stockpiling of horn have turned rhinos into high-risk investments. When the economics shift, so too do the incentives. The language of conservation remains, but the underlying logic increasingly resembles that of asset management.

Bontebok fit within this pattern. Their continued existence outside their natural range is presented as evidence that the system works. But the successful CITES delisting proposal in November last year acknowledged that economic incentives – trophy hunting, live sales and associated trade – are central to maintaining those populations. Conservation, therefore, becomes conditional on profitability.

Under such a model, herd composition is monitored, genetics and colour variants are manipulated to create hybrid species within fragmented systems, while game auctions and translocations are routine. The animals are “wild” in name, but their existence is not and is tightly controlled. This may prevent extinction, but it does not restore ecological autonomy.

The public trust dilemma

South Africa’s Constitution guarantees the right to have the environment protected for present and future generations. Environmental legislation incorporates the public trust doctrine, which recognises that biodiversity is held in custodianship for the benefit of all South Africans.

Yet the wildlife ownership regime entrenched by the Game Theft Act centres private control. Legal scholars have noted the tension between enclosure-based ownership and the broader constitutional obligation to conserve biodiversity as a public good. When wildlife is primarily treated as property, decisions about its management are inevitably shaped by ownership rights and market value.

The dispute in the Supreme Court in the Medbury case in 2018, where buffalo had escaped a provincial reserve into a private one, demonstrates how readily wildlife becomes a matter of property law. The courts were asked to determine ownership based on enclosure, not to weigh public trust responsibilities or ecological function. That hierarchy is telling.

A low standard of success

South Africa’s wildlife model has undoubtedly prevented certain extinctions. Private land plays an important role in species persistence. But survival alone is a low benchmark.

Conservation worthy of the name requires functioning ecosystems, restored habitats and landscapes capable of sustaining ecological processes without constant human intervention. In the case of the bontebok, extinction was avoided decades ago through decisive protection of habitat. What has not followed is meaningful restoration of the ecosystem that defined the species.

The result is a conservation narrative that celebrates head counts while ecological degradation continues.

The question is not whether the wildlife economy generates revenue. The question is whether the legal and economic framework that governs it truly secures biodiversity as a shared inheritance, or whether it simply ensures that select species remain profitable enough to persist behind fences.

Until those two objectives are aligned, claims that the model “works” will remain open to challenge.

Avoiding extinction is necessary but it is nowhere near sufficient. DM

Dr Adam Cruise is an investigative environmental journalist, travel writer and academic. He has contributed to a number of international publications, including National Geographic and The Guardian, covering diverse topics from the plight of elephants, rhinos and lions in Africa to coral reef rejuvenation in Indonesia. Cruise is a doctor of philosophy, specialising in animal and environmental ethics, and is the editor of the online Journal of African Elephants.