@taitsougstad I can only speak for my country (South Africa).
Land ownership and ease/restriction of access in South Africa has had a long, bloody, and complicated history. Between tribal wars and European colonisation (and the dispossession engendered by both), the land has changed hands many times. Perhaps there was a point when one could walk the length and breadth of the country without artificial restriction, but that hasn’t existed in this country for several hundred years since the arrival of pastoralists and agriculturalists in the region.
I think the concept of land ownership over the centuries has changed with the arrival of new groups of people: the first human inhabitants (the Khoisan) likely did not see the land as something to be owned. The arrival of the Bantu expansion probably brought with it, if not immediately then in time, the concept of tribal lands (which probably had fluid borders and would have changed as tribes formed and broke apart over time), over which the tribal chiefs and kings would have exercised their authority and decided where crops would be planted, where buildings could be erected, etc.
It was really with European arrival that land was seen as something to be owned individually, and as a commodity that could change hands with monetary exchange.
Modern South Africa now exists in a weird state where in some regions tribal communal ‘ownership’ (as administered by tribal leaders) can overlap with individually owned land plots, often ‘owned’ (as in a title deed held) by people whose ancestors were non-African. Cities are mostly formalised land ownership, with extensive shantytowns frequently erected on government (and sometimes private) land, leading in some incidents to evictions (often done by private organisations hired to do so, such as the Red Ants).
As I’ve said, it’s a complicated mess.
In my own personal case, I have found it easier to access areas that are either privately owned that charge a fee for entrance, or government-owned national parks that can also charge a fee for entrance! I have not really entered communal-owned tribal lands because I am descended from non-African people, and because those tend to be far away from the city where I live. It is probably also because of safety that I don’t go as I do not know the local languages they speak (e.g. isiXhosa or isiZulu, etc) so I wouldn’t know which areas I would largely be safe in (and in South Africa, personal safety is important).
The experience described by @opisska is frankly a little bizarre and foreign to me. This sort of freedom of movement would never fly in South Africa, for several reasons.
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South Africa is a large country with many remote areas not easily accessed by road or water, and my perception of Europe is that when in the country you are never far from other people, because farms and towns are everywhere and roads are extensive. This is not the case in large areas of South Africa, especially in the arid northwest.
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Europe does not seem to have much in the way of dangerous wildlife, so camping anywhere one would like is much less of a risk. In South Africa one would probably need to be aware of venomous snakes, scorpions and spiders, as well as larger mammals such as baboon, leopard, hyena, and in some large national parks the additional species of buffalo, elephant, rhinoceros, and hippopotamus. All dangerous in their own right and not something you would want to end up on the wrong side of when camping! (For this reason many reserves and national parks are fenced, to prevent human-wildlife conflict, and part of the entrance fees go towards the maintenance of this critical infrastructure as well as the protection of the wildlife).
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For much the same reason, much less enthralling, is the risk of other humans, especially closer to towns and villages. Camping willy-nilly on land that is occupied by unfriendly and/or desperate people is tempting fate and can be a unpleasant experience, and law enforcement can be slow. That is not to say that camping in South Africa is always or inherently dangerous - quite the opposite in many cases. I can attest to this as I have camped before in remote areas where there are few other people. It depends on the area and region.
The private ownership of land with restriction of access, combined with ownership of wildlife, is probably a factor in the increase of certain wildlife populations in South Africa. The economic attraction in ecotourism has led some landowners (including communal ‘owners’) to stock their land with, and otherwise encourage the presence, of several game species.
This combined with the existence of national parks such as Kruger has resulted in a 180-degree shift in mindset for many people of European descent, such that much of the modern generation see wildlife as something to be cherished and protected, not shot or exterminated and replaced with livestock (this was a common attitude as recent as the 1950s where farms on market were even advertised as being free of wildlife!)
The economic benefits have also not escaped the notice of the tribal communal areas, where upon having received back land unfairly expropriated from them in the early 20th century, allocated at least some of it for wildlife reserves, such as in some areas of Zululand.
This change in attitude has resulted in the increase of absolute numbers in species populations. For example, the springbok is one of the few African antelope that is increasing in population, because of the vested interest of private conservationists, tribal communal owners, game farmers, and hunters.
Because people cannot just move across the land, many wildlife species can breed in relative peace (wildlife across the world including in Europe and North America, can and are negatively affected by the mere presence of humans in the landscape). It also prevents wildlife attacks on people, and thereby allows for the presence of large, dangerous predators such as lions and spotted hyenas in certain areas.
However this model of animal conservation and restriction of access is not without its downsides. The majority of poor people in South Africa do not have the money to pay for entering reserves that charge fees. There are thousands of South Africans that have never seen a wild mammal bigger than a dog - they have never seen an elephant, nor a lion, nor many of the magnificent animals that South Africa is famous for. This in turn can alienate them (and especially their children) from the wildlife and the land their ancestors lived with. The nature of poverty means that people affected by it do not have opportunities to access even the nature outside of cities as a means of leisure (what travel they do is mostly to their home community/town for family).
Poverty in such as a country as mine can create a purely consumptive mindset, that for the small bits of nature that exist in and around cities and can be freely entered without any fee, is seen as something to take from, whether this be poaching plants for medicinal “value” or running their dogs to hunt and harass the small wildlife left in such places. Such slivers of nature near impoverished communities can be also a crime hotspot, with anyone entering such places running the risk of muggings or worse.
However, the opposite can happen. Places that do not charge fees, or fences, or other forms of restriction of access, can be a place of healing and solace for people living in poverty and similar dire situations. Places such as Table Mountain and the Cape Peninsula in Cape Town have been a place where people from all walks of life can enjoy nature, and there are some projects/initiatives that take children from impoverished areas such as the Cape Flats on these outings where they can experience biodiversity and nature as something they too can experience, and to show them that there is more to life and possibilities than just poverty and violence.
tl;dr for better and for worse, the ease of access to nature in South Africa is a multifaceted and complex matter, with pros and cons for both the freedom of access and the restriction thereof.