Transcending Boundaries in Conservation
Community Engagement in Action
For decades, conservation practitioners have grappled with the concept of community engagement. Often, we have sought separate solutions to environmental and development problems. Yet many organizations have been successfully implementing community-driven conservation programs intended to address both natural resource management and community development issues simultaneously. Despite this vast experience, we have often lacked collaboration. Many approaches, models, and theories have been developed individually without combining lessons learned, best practices, challenges, and successes from the vast network of conservation and development organizations working closely with communities to create a better future.
With the publication of Community, Conservation, and Collaboration: A Framework for Success, we seek to change that.
Defining the Future of Community Engagement in Conservation
Photo: African People & Wildlife/Stella Snowden
As a first step to the creation of the framework, African People & Wildlife , with support from the National Geographic Society , hosted a workshop in Arusha, Tanzania in November 2018 to bring together conservation and development practitioners from across eastern and southern Africa. Through sharing experiences of challenges faced, success stories, and best practices, the workshop participants developed an outline for a community engagement framework. Over the last year, this outline has come to life in a comprehensive guide to working with communities to achieve conservation goals.
"The workshop was designed to really discover the 'how' of community engagement practice and not just discuss theories." —Laly Lichtenfeld, Ph.D., Co-founder and CEO, African People & Wildlife
Community, Conservation, and Collaboration: A Framework for Success, is not intended to be the final product of that collaboration but rather the first step. It is our hope that conservation practitioners and environmental managers in Africa will use this framework and its associated toolkit to enhance their knowledge and skills when interacting and working with local peoples.
The interactive toolkit developed organically as collaborators shared the processes, methods, and action plans they use to effectively engage with communities. The tools provide generic templates applicable to any community-based conservation effort. While some of the tools were created specifically for this framework, most have been adapted from instruments used in other sectors.
Workshop Participants
The inaugural workshop entitled "The Future of Community Engagement in Conservation" included 16 participants from six countries.
The gathering was the first of its kind and a critical step toward the creation of a pan-African network of community engagement practitioners.
Hover over each point to learn more about the workshop participants.
Referenced Organizations
During the development of the framework, more than 50 organizations' strategies in eastern and southern Africa were considered and over 60 academic articles and case studies were reviewed.
The adjacent map shows the organizations that contributed content to the framework.
The cases below highlight contributors who implement best practices in their work with communities. These on-the-ground conservationists are transcending the boundaries of conservation and community development.
Hover over each point to learn more about the organizations referenced in the framework.
A "Human Development Engine"
Gorongosa National Park in central Mozambique is a model of community-driven conservation. In 2008, the Mozambican government and the Carr Foundation began a public-private partnership for the joint management of Gorongosa. Since then, the Gorongosa Restoration Project has sought to reframe the protected area, not just as a sanctuary for wildlife but as a critical source of sustainable livelihoods for surrounding communities.
Gorongosa Restoration Project provided invaluable experience in the development of Community, Conservation, and Collaboration. Their Sustainable Finance Plan is highlighted in the Financing Community Engagement section of the framework, which provides tips and tools for turning the trade-offs between conservation and development into strengths.
“By reframing Gorongosa National Park as a ‘human development engine,’ we are supporting and enhancing national health services, agricultural programs, and education for local people, trying to lift them out of poverty and create more support for the park in a positive feedback loop—with a special focus on providing more opportunities for women and keeping girls in school."—Greg Carr, President, Gorongosa Project
Located at the southern end of the Great Rift Valley, Gorongosa is an IUCN category II protected area of nearly over 3,700 square kilometers. The park is home to a large diversity of wildlife and is surrounded by human communities dependent on its natural resources.
The Gorongosa Restoration Project seeks to balance the needs of wildlife and people by supporting environmental enterprise, providing assistance to farmers, and improving health care services to communities surrounding the park.
Gorongosa’s Human Development Department (representing about half of Gorongosa’s budget) engages with surrounding communities in education, health care, and small farmer support to ensure the park is beneficial for all. While a substantial amount of funding for the park’s budget comes from private and government donors, an increasing percentage is generated through conservation enterprise. Gorongosa’s Sustainable Finance Plan seeks to shift financial stability from donors to earned income through sustainable green businesses owned by the park, ranging from the tourism sector to Gorongosa brands of coffee, cashews, and honey.
Photo: Jennifer Guyton
Gorongosa National Park’s Rainforest Coffee supports 1,000 families to establish sustainable, small-scale production of coffee in partnership with the park, the government, and the private sector. Through an integrated focus on education, health, and enterprise development, Gorongosa aims to thoroughly address community issues and simultaneously protect indigenous species and ecosystems.
Photo: Jennifer Guyton
At the core of the Gorongosa model is a strong emphasis on gender mainstreaming. By focusing on lifting half of the population up through women’s education, employment, and empowerment, Gorongosa is leading the field of conservation toward gender equity.
Photo: Susanna Jolly
The best practices employed by the Gorongosa Restoration Project, from a focus on women’s empowerment to a sustainable finance model, can be adopted broadly by conservation practitioners seeking to achieve positive outcomes for people and nature.
Photo: Ticky Rosa
Cross-cutting Conservation
Conservation Through Public Health (CTPH) demonstrates the power of interdisciplinary programs. Three integrated, strategic priorities comprise CTPH’s model: wildlife conservation, community health, and alternative livelihoods. Together, these priorities create a holistic program aimed at addressing community development and conservation problems simultaneously.
CTPH brought their expertise in cross-sectoral programming to the development of Community, Conservation, and Collaboration: A Framework for Success. Recognizing their multidisciplinary approach, their programs are highlighted in the Community Engagement in Practice: Examples from the Field section of the framework in both the wildlife conservation and enterprise and economics sections.
"Today, we realize how wildlife, humans, and ecosystems are all interconnected. We began with a mission to protect the critically endangered mountain gorilla and are now growing to more protected areas in Africa to ensure that gorilla conservation continues by working directly with local communities, government partners, and international stakeholders." —Dr. Gladys Kalema-Zikusoka, Founder and CEO, Conservation Through Public Health
In 1996, a fatal scabies outbreak in the gorilla population of Uganda’s Bwindi Impenetrable National Park was traced back to human communities living around the protected area. CTPH was founded to address disease transmission between closely related species such as people and gorillas and cattle and buffalo.
Photo: Jo-Anne McArthur/Unbound Project
CTPH strives to promote human and wildlife health through programs that encourage local communities to be stewards of their environment. These programs include trained community members who volunteer to provide integrated community-based public health information and services such as hygiene practices, infectious disease prevention and control, nutrition, and conservation education.
Networks are established in communities living adjacent to protected areas and gorilla populations, allowing CTPH to provide health services while advocating for conservation and education.
Now, CTPH implements programs in five conservation landscapes in Uganda and the Democratic Republic of Congo:
- Bwindi Impenetrable National Park
- Queen Elizabeth National Park
- Pian Upe Wildlife Reserve
- Mt. Elgon National Park
- Virunga National Park
Click on the features for more information.
Through these community teams, CTPH establishes mutually beneficial relationships and open dialogue between the community and the organization. The programs exemplify the importance of empowering community members to take command of their personal and environmental well-being. (See Tool 5.1 and Tool 5.2 in the toolkit for related resources.)
Photo: Jo-Anne McArthur/Unbound Project
CTPH uses the best practice of treating health care programs as complex adaptive systems and not as linear cause-and-effect models. Its reliance on local community teams recognizes local people as equals in the process of advancing health and well-being and ensures that messages are delivered by fellow community members who understand local languages, customs, and culture.
Photo: Charles Capel
Conservation Without Borders
Linking community-level efforts to national and international conservation goals is an important next step in empowering communities to manage natural resources on a large scale. Including communities in landscape-level conservation becomes more important as human population increases and wildlife habitat decreases.
While protected areas are certainly important refugia for wildlife, coexistence between people and wildlife in shared, multiple-land use landscapes is a necessity. The Kavango-Zambezi Transfrontier Conservation Area (KAZA TFCA) is emerging as a leader in landscape-scale conservation through community-driven initiatives. The ambitious KAZA TFCA initiative is highlighted in the Governance and Diplomacy section of the framework, which provides tips and tools for gaining national and international support for community-driven initiatives. (See Tool 7.1 and Tool 7.2 in the toolkit for related resources.)
KAZA TFCA Mission: To sustainably manage the Kavango Zambezi ecosystem, its heritage and cultural resources based on best conservation and tourism models for the socio-economic well-being of the communities and other stakeholders in and around the eco-region through harmonization of policies, strategies and practices.
The Kavango-Zambezi Transfrontier Conservation Area (KAZA TFCA) encompasses lands in Angola, Botswana, Namibia, Zambia, and Zimbabwe, covering nearly 520,000 square kilometers.
As the largest transfrontier conservation area on the globe, KAZA comprises 20 national parks, 85 forest reserves, 22 conservancies, 11 sanctuaries, 103 Wildlife Management Areas, 11 Game Management Areas, and over 148,000 square kilometers of land for agriculture and rangeland.
This extraordinary diversity in land use and livelihoods creates extreme governance challenges. But, by necessity, it also drives cooperative and collaborative opportunities to overcome conflicting priorities and align conservation enterprise goals of adjacent communities and neighboring countries.
Click on the features for more information.
In June 2008, the Zambian component of the TFCA produced an Integrated Development Plan in collaboration with the Peace Parks Foundation, the Zambian government, private sector representatives, and community-level stakeholders at the local level.
As a result, the Ngonye Falls Community Partnership Park was created and opened in 2012.
The Ngonye Falls Community Partnership Park recognizes the ecological, cultural, and economic value of Ngonye Falls and aims to conserve the riverine habitat while unlocking the ecotourism potential to benefit the Simumbi and Linganga communities, on whose land the falls are located. The park is jointly owned by these communities’ traditional leadership, the local community, and the Zambia Wildlife Authority.
Ngonye Falls Community Partnership Park is just one of many community projects undertaken in the KAZA landscape. From strictly protected areas to productive agricultural fields, KAZA seeks to link community conservation and development initiatives with global conservation aims.
The TFCA provides a platform for the landscape-scale conservation efforts needed to maintain healthy ecosystems and redefine the relationship between people and nature.
Photo: Ellen Naro
Though there is much to learn in linking community-level initiatives to global conservation goals, the KAZA TFCA, through its diversity- and community-based approach, is leading the charge. By crossing geographic borders, it transcends traditional conservation boundaries.
Photo: Ellen Naro
More Than Change
By deepening our involvement with communities and engaging in development and conservation work simultaneously, we can create win-win solutions. We can revitalize our relationship with nature and repair our relationships with those who have suffered environmental injustices. We cannot create a sustainable Earth alone. We must advocate for communities, for conservation, and for collaboration—all in one.
Many of us, as conservationists, entered this field for a love of wildlife and wild places—but the future of our work is with people. With the passion and innovation that have ignited our efforts thus far, we create positive change for the Earth’s last wild places. When we share that passion with communities, we create more than change.
We create a transformation.
To download Community, Conservation, and Collaboration: A Framework for Success and the associated toolkit, please visit: africanpeoplewildlife.org/community-conservation-collaboration
Training opportunities and an accompanying curriculum will be announced in the coming months. For updates, please sign up for our e-newsletter at africanpeoplewildlife.org and follow us on Facebook and Instagram .
About African People & Wildlife
African People & Wildlife (APW) works to ensure a future where humans and wild animals thrive living side by side. APW partners with communities to create effective, sustainable solutions that improve the lives of rural Africans while protecting the natural world. Operating on the ground in Tanzania, APW establishes long-term relationships with local residents based on the respectful integration of science and tradition. APW’s strategic, holistic approach to conservation is widely applicable in landscapes where people and wildlife coexist. Founded in 2005, APW is a recognized leader in the field of community-driven conservation.
