Nkorho, one of several private game lodges situated on the Sabi Sands reserve, is home to one of the most interesting exports in the Big Five industry. The export, however, isn't wild game, but rather live digital feeds. The Nkorho pan is part of the Africam web project, which describes itself as “the world's first virtual game reserve”.

To put things into perspective, one needs to go back to the late 1990s, when Paul Clifford and Graham Wallington mounted a camera that overlooked a game lodge watering hole. At the time, with internet stocks in ballistic trajectory, the duo committed to spending in the region of R25 000 on the project as a potential web money spinner. Like most internet projects, it was a great idea with many of the details yet to be worked out. The African bush presents a number of its own challenges, such as torrential thunderstorms, dust and heat, and, of course, wild animals. In some instances, cameras with lifetime guarantees were chewed into a much shorter lifespan by the subjects they were photographing. However, with diligence, technical savvy and entrepreneurial doggedness, the two partners were able to produce Africam and a worldwide phenomenon was made tangible. Clifford and Wallington did not make millions from this project, like so many of the early internet initiatives, but the value of the idea would prove itself with time.