This panel addresses the role of the private sector in conservation and development. In Southern and East Africa, there’s a growing trend to convert commercial farms/ranches to wildlife-based forms of land-use. In this panel we seek to understand the driving forces behind these conversions. Furthermore, we will explore possible impacts of these conversions on farm dwellers - i.e. farm labourers, (former) labour and rent-paying tenants and their families – and neighbouring communities in terms of changing labour relations, job opportunities, and access to land and other natural resources.

The panel builds on a research project currently conducted in the Eastern Cape and KwaZulu-Natal Provinces in South Africa. Research is ongoing to determine the driving forces behind the conversions, the scale and extent of the trend in KwaZulu-Natal and the Eastern Cape, policy and legislation issues, and the economics of the different forms of wildlife production – including private game reserves, hunting operations, and venison production. Research is conducted among wildlife producers, their representatives, and relevant – local and national – government departments. Furthermore, researchers in the project also engage with affected farm-based communities in the two provinces, whose responses are a key focus of the research project. In this panel researchers engaged in the project present preliminary results, but we also invite other researchers involved in related research to send in abstracts. Papers on private sector companies managing national parks and on ‘land grabbing’ in relation to wildlife tourism, for instance, are very much welcomed.