Conditioned by neoliberalism: a reassessment of land claim resolutions in the Kruger National Park

The focus of this paper is on land reform in protected areas where two main national priorities for biodiversity conservation and land restitution have clashed, and subsequently led to a model of settling land claims in protected areas. This model, initiated by the resolution to the Makuleke land claim in the Kruger National Park in 1998, was celebrated nationally and internationally as one of the best options for resolving environmental injustices in the country and as an avenue for developing a mutually beneficial pact between people and parks. Our principal objectives are to account for why and how the Makuleke land claim was settled and hailed as an appropriate model, and why such a model - deemed useful - has been abandoned by the government and conservation lobby groups and agencies. We draw on material from earlier research on this case and recent fieldwork data to argue that the Makuleke model has been abandoned partly because the conditions under which it was developed have changed and also because of the neoliberalisation of protected areas in the country. We conclude that the process of neoliberalising nature goes beyond creating conditions for capital penetration in nature to influence land and agrarian relations.