National Environmental Management: Biodiversity Act, 2004 (Act No. 10 of 2004)

Aloe ferox is tapped on private and communal land, especially on land closer to roads (Newton and Vaughan, 1996; Melin, 2009). Most A. ferox products (95%) are harvested from wild populations, and a smaller percentage (5%) is harvested from cultivated stands. One farmer in the Western Cape indicated that his cultivated A. ferox stock accounts for only 2% of his production, with the remaining volumes sourced from the wild. Harvesting knowledge and skills have been passed down over generations family custom, and the as a harvesting practice (commonly referred to as tapping) hasn't changed much over the past two centuries (Newton and Vaughan, 1996).

In the Western Cape where harvesting occurs predominantly on privately owned land, the harvesters usually pay a fee to the landowners for access to the plants (O'Brien, 2005; Bosch, 2006) and are permitted to harvest no more than 10 - 12 leaves per plant over a six week period with a harvesting cycle of between 18 and 36 months, depending on the plant condition and season (Newton and Vaughan, 1996; DEA, 2014). Harvest control strategies like these are more difficult to implement in the communal lands of the Eastern Cape because natural resources are viewed as public goods for all to share, but ideally intervals between harvesting events need to be increased to allow plants to rebuild resources, especially during extended drought periods.

in general, the Western Cape populations are reportedly better managed for sustainable utilization than the Eastern Cape populations owing largely to the different land tenure arrangements and informal local control plans among industry members and trained harvesters.

The Aloe ferox industry is slowly adapting to the Bioprospecting Access and Benefit Sharing (BABS) Regulations, which provides for the fair and legal acquisition and sustainable trade of resources governed by an adaptive management framework through permitting systems.