Decolonising Enclosures: Climate Justice and Community Struggles around Privately Owned Conservation Landscapes in the Eastern Cape of South Africa

This article examines private wildlife conservation in South Africa’s Eastern Cape as a contested form of climate governance that reproduces climate injustice. Drawing on qualitative interviews and focus groups with community members and reserve officials, the study applies a decolonial climate justice framework to analyse how enclosure operates under conditions of drought. The findings show that private reserves secure land, water and ecological resilience through capital-intensive adaptation strategies, while externalising climate risks to neighbouring, land-insecure communities. Conservation enclosures thus function as elite climate adaptation regimes rather than neutral land uses. The article argues for more equitable, rights-based approaches to conservation governance.