dearmer:

Lemme help, as I think I might know what you are driving at, since I always wondered the same thing until I spent time in several countries on the continent and did hunt as a resident in RSA.

In effect, there is no "public land" in RSA as you may be thinking like commonly exists here in the USA. As Shakari says, some parks have certain packages available, but the concept of "public land" as exists in the USA does not exist in South Africa or any other African country I am aware of. The concept of publicly owned, multi-use land is actually fairly unique to the USA.

From an American perspective, the situation in South Africa is much more like Texas where much land is available for hunting...but only if you pay. Even biltong hunts are quite expensive by American standards.

Not sure, but you may be thinking in terms of vast, wide open wilderness type land where no one lives and where in effect no one has direct control and anyone may hunt where they choose, or something like that. There was a day when fellows bought cheap licenses from the various governments and "just went hunting", sort of wherever they wanted, but those days have been gone for decades. Exploding populations and commercialized hunting put a knife in the neck of that dream long ago.

Many Americans think of "Africa" as being sort-of an idyllic and vast expanse of land where "free for the taking" critters roam and government bureaucracy is minimal. No so. There is "wilderness" left in sountern Africa, to be sure, but in all countries in southern Africa I am aware of, all hunting is very expensive for outsiders and except for certain individual exceptions {farmers, ranchers, etc} no large chunks of land exist like in the USA where residents can go hunting after merely paying for a cheap hunting license.

Somebody please feel free to correct me if I'm wrong.