Department of Forestry, Fisheries and the Environment Willie Aucamp distanced his department from the recommendations contained in a report by the EMS Foundation — which documents systemic failures across the sector. (Facebook)
South Africa’s provincial nature reserves are facing deepening crises of governance, funding and ecological decline, yet the department of forestry, fisheries and the environment has stopped short of committing to any direct intervention, according to a recent parliamentary reply.
In a written response to questions posed in the National Council of Provinces, the minister, Willie Aucamp, acknowledged the “challenges, issues or findings” affecting provincial reserves but distanced his department from the recommendations contained in a report by the EMS Foundation — which documents systemic failures across the sector.
The questions, submitted by Freedom Front Plus MP Tanja Breedt, referred to the EMS Foundation’s findings as well as a 2023 assessment by the Endangered Wildlife Trust (EWT) and the Wildlife and Environment Society of South Africa (Wessa). Both reports described widespread underfunding, collapsing infrastructure, staff shortages, weakened biodiversity protection and increasing commercial pressures in provincial reserves.
In his reply, Aucamp said the EMS Foundation report was an independent civil society initiative that had not been “legitimised” or adopted as a government report.
As a result, the department “cannot respond to or implement the recommendations contained in an external report that has not been adopted as an official government report”, he said. Instead, Aucamp pointed to a ministerial task team appointed in August 2023 to investigate challenges hindering management authorities from fulfilling their conservation mandates and affecting the management efficacy of the vital protected areas.
The minister said the task team’s mandate was to investigate systemic challenges such as underfunding, infrastructure collapse, staff shortages and other operational challenges, as well as identify gaps in mandate fulfillment to provide actionable recommendations on how to address the systemic issues.
The team was investigating and providing recommendations. The findings and recommendations of its report would be submitted to the cabinet for consideration. Once adopted, its recommendations and findings would be the official report that informed the government department’s actions, the minister said.
However, neither were timelines provided for the completion of the investigation nor was any indication given of interim measures to address what the civil society reports describe as an accelerating deterioration of provincial protected areas.
While Aucamp said the department confirmed that it had considered how failing provincial reserves could affect the implementation of the National Biodiversity Economy Strategy, its own assessment raised further concerns.
The minister said the task team report on financial challenges experienced by provincial conservation authorities, in particular provincial nature reserves, had revealed a decline in potential revenue generation, investment opportunities, private–public partnerships and loss of relevant critical skills.
Despite that, the department continues to advance plans to expand the consumptive use of wildlife under a draft biodiversity economy strategy that has yet to be approved by the cabinet.
Proposed measures include increasing the availability of Big Five animals for trophy hunting; expanding recreational and traditional hunting; scaling up commercial game meat harvesting from extensive wildlife systems; and growing industries based on animal derivatives such as skins and hides. The cabinet has approved a national game meat strategy, published in late 2023.
The apparent contradiction between collapsing reserve management and plans to intensify wildlife use has drawn a strong response from the EMS Foundation, which described the minister’s reply as “deeply disappointing” and evasive.
Aucamp said he did not intend to exercise any intervention powers under the relevant national legislation “in respect of the affected provincial conservation authorities and reserves. The environment is a concurrent function” and the respective MECs “are responsible for the management of their own reserves”.
What the reports found
The EMS Foundation report underscores how the country’s provincial nature reserves are a critical pillar of both biodiversity conservation and rural economic development, yet are in a state of widespread and accelerating collapse.
South Africa is the most biologically diverse country on the continent, home to an estimated 87 401 species. A 2018 performance and expenditure review reported that municipal and provincial reserves spanned more than 3 million hectares across 427 protected areas, representing 8% of the total conservation estate.
The 2023 report by the EWT and Wessa found systemic mismanagement, budget cuts and infrastructure collapse. Building on the earlier assessments, the EMS Foundation conducted extensive in-field investigations between February and June 2025, visiting 53 provincial nature reserves across the nine provinces.
The findings reveal that conditions on the ground are “significantly worse than previously reported”.
Across all reserves visited, the foundation documented severe underfunding, widespread infrastructure decay and a lack of effective support from both provincial and national governments.
Roads, accommodation, fencing, water and electricity systems have collapsed in many reserves, while several have been closed to the public for years. Some reserves operate as “paper parks” — officially proclaimed but functionally non-existent — and at least one has been fully decommissioned.
The report also highlights growing external pressures, including land invasions, unresolved land claims, mining interests and urban encroachment.
Ecological integrity is further undermined by the unchecked spread of invasive species and escalating poaching and snaring, linked to reduced staffing and post-Covid economic stress, the foundation’s report said. Staff morale is described as extremely poor, with delayed salaries, strikes, unfilled posts and a steady erosion of institutional expertise.
In several provinces, reserves are increasingly managed for trophy hunting and commercial game breeding, often excluding eco-tourism entirely.
During hunting season, some reserves are closed to the public and repeated hunting has reportedly caused wildlife to become “skittish or disappear”. Of the 53 reserves assessed, only three were found to be functioning as intended.
The report concludes that without urgent, coordinated reform, provincial reserves risk becoming enduring symbols of “systemic neglect” rather than cornerstones of conservation and sustainable development.
EMS Foundation responds
In a statement responding to Aucamp’s parliamentary answers, the foundation said that dismissing its findings on the basis that they were not government-authored amounted to sidestepping accountability rather than engaging with the substance of the crisis.
Parliamentary oversight, it said, routinely relied on independent research, particularly when it documented on-the-ground conditions in publicly funded institutions.
The foundation noted that the minister did not dispute the report’s findings of governance failures, biodiversity loss and erosion of conservation mandates but simply avoided addressing them.
It also warned that prolonged investigation without visible intervention risked becoming a mechanism for delay, while conditions in provincial reserves continued to deteriorate.
Concerns were also raised about the minister’s refusal to consider intervention powers in respect of failing provincial conservation authorities.
While environmental management was a concurrent national and provincial function, the foundation said, the national government retained constitutional oversight responsibilities, particularly where protected areas of national ecological importance were demonstrably failing.
The department said reports generated through the management effectiveness tracking tool were not automatically made public and could be accessed only through formal applications under the Promotion of Access to Information Act.
The foundation said that requiring formal requests for baseline data on publicly funded reserves undermined public oversight at a time when confidence in provincial conservation governance was fragile.
South Africa, it added, could not hope to build a viable biodiversity economy on a “crumbling conservation foundation”.