The game industry currently represents 9% of the Eastern Cape’s agricultural activities.

The province has the third largest number of game farms in the country at 624, behind Limpopo’s 2 480 and 986 in the Northern Cape.

Over the past decade the industry has mushroomed, mainly because it presented a financially viable and less risky alternative to commercial farming.

For instance, the East Cape Game Management Association (ECGMA) currently has 1 600 members who include professional hunters, recreational hunters, game farmers, safari operators and meat processors.

The game industry is definitely a strong economic sector and consists of the following components:
� Game auctions.

� Overseas hunters who visit the province to hunt game. Although the strong rand has made the industry less competitive globally, we believe that we have touched only the tip of the iceberg and that many opportunities still exist.

� Domestic hunters that constitute the largest section of the industry at present.

� Game is an integral part of the province’s eco-tourism industry, in the form of game lodges that draw domestic and foreign tourists to the province.

� In the last three years a number of new companies have been established to process venison for both the domestic and export market.

This is a sector of the game industry that is becoming increasingly important as a high demand exists for venison.

Demand is mostly driven by health-conscious consumers, as venison is considered to be the more healthy alternative to other meats.

The main challenge to the industry is the proposed game translocation policy that the government is currently formulating.

This document aims to restrict the movement of game over provincial borders to ensure that game species are not moved to areas where it did not historically exist.

Because of the Eastern Cape’s bio-diversity, it is able to carry a wide variety of game species and if only historical species were to be moved here it could have catastrophic effects on the game industry.