Opinion: New-style partnerships needed for community conservation

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Vast areas of Africa’s most important ecosystems lie outside national parks, on lands managed and inhabited by local communities. These landscapes are critical to biodiversity, but remain under-integrated into formal conservation and economic systems. Andrew Parker argues that community–private partnerships offer a scalable pathway to unlock their value. 

• Andrew Parker is co-founder and director at Conserve Global. He writes: “The future of conservation will depend on how effectively we support communities to manage and benefit from the landscapes they live in.”

• He adds that combining community stewardship with external technical and financial support can turn these areas into productive, nature-based economies while strengthening long-term conservation outcomes.

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By Andrew Parker, the co-founder and director at Conserve Global.

Conservation discourse in Sub-Saharan Africa has historically centred on formally designated protected areas such as national parks and wildlife reserves. These landscapes have played a critical role in safeguarding biodiversity, protecting iconic species, and maintaining ecological processes. Yet focusing solely on national parks obscures a far broader and more complex conservation reality. 

Across the region, vast tracts of land that support critical biodiversity and ecosystem services lie outside formal protected area boundaries. These landscapes—often comprising communal rangelands, forests, wetlands, and mixed-use territories—constitute a significant portion of the ecological infrastructure of the continent. Crucially, unlike many protected areas globally, these conservation landscapes are not uninhabited wilderness. They are lived-in environments where rural and Indigenous communities have coexisted with nature for generations.

Many of these communities occupy what are often described as “last-mile” landscapes: remote areas characterised by limited infrastructure, minimal state presence, and restricted access to public services such as healthcare, education, and markets. Despite their marginalisation in development planning, these communities are deeply embedded within the ecosystems that surround them. Their livelihoods depend almost entirely on ecosystem goods and services—including grazing land, wild foods, freshwater resources, timber, and non-timber forest products. Consequently, the health and resilience of the ecosystems in which they live are directly tied to their economic security, food systems, and cultural continuity.

Paradoxically, the very communities most dependent on ecosystem integrity are also among those most vulnerable to environmental change. Climate change, habitat degradation, unsustainable resource extraction, and land-use transformation threaten both biodiversity and the livelihoods of people living in these landscapes. Drought, soil erosion, changing rainfall patterns, and biodiversity loss can quickly undermine subsistence economies that rely on natural systems. As a result, last-mile communities have the most to lose from ecological decline, even though they have historically contributed the least to global environmental degradation.

This reality underscores the urgent need to reframe conservation strategies in Sub-Saharan Africa. Rather than viewing local communities primarily as beneficiaries of conservation or, in some cases, as pressures on ecosystems, there is growing recognition that they must be elevated as stewards and guardians of the landscapes upon which they depend. Community-based stewardship aligns ecological sustainability with local interests, creating incentives for long-term resource management and ecosystem restoration. When communities have meaningful authority and agency over their natural resources, conservation outcomes can be strengthened while simultaneously supporting rural development and resilience.

However, translating this vision into practice requires confronting several structural constraints that many last-mile communities face. Despite possessing deep ecological knowledge and strong incentives to safeguard their environments, these communities often lack the governance frameworks, financial capital, technical expertise, and management capacity needed to effectively steward large landscapes. Weak institutional capacity can limit their ability to enforce sustainable resource use, manage conservation programmes, access conservation finance, or develop viable nature-based enterprises. In addition, geographic isolation often restricts access to markets and external partnerships that could help unlock the economic potential of their landscapes.

These constraints highlight the importance of innovative partnership models capable of bridging capacity gaps while preserving community sovereignty. One promising approach is the development of community–private partnerships in which non-governmental organisations (NGOs) work alongside communities as long-term collaborators and service providers. In this model, NGOs do not supplant local governance structures but rather support them by providing technical expertise, financial resources, training, and operational support. The goal is not to assume control of community landscapes, but to strengthen the ability of communities themselves to manage and benefit from them.

Such partnerships are particularly important in landscapes where conservation and development objectives intersect. By combining community leadership with external expertise, community–private partnerships can help design and implement integrated landscape management systems that promote biodiversity conservation while generating sustainable livelihoods. These collaborations can also catalyse the development of nature-positive economic opportunities—including ecotourism, regenerative agriculture, wildlife-based enterprises, carbon and biodiversity credits, and sustainable harvesting of natural products. When effectively designed, these activities contribute to the creation of nature-based economies that generate durable financial value while reinforcing ecosystem integrity.

Unlocking the latent economic potential of these landscapes is critical for ensuring that conservation delivers tangible benefits to local communities. Where conservation generates income, employment, and local development opportunities, it becomes aligned with community interests and priorities. Shared financial value also strengthens local incentives to protect ecosystems from overexploitation or conversion to unsustainable land uses. Over time, such models can foster resilient rural economies rooted in the sustainable management of natural capital.

An organisation working at the forefront of this approach is Conserve Global, which operates with the explicit aim of strengthening the capacity of frontline communities to steward their natural landscapes. Conserve Global positions itself intentionally as a service provider to last-mile communities rather than as a governing authority or external manager. This distinction is critical. By operating as a service provider, the organisation ensures that sovereignty and decision-making authority remain firmly vested within local communities. The role of Conserve Global is to provide the expertise, tools, resources, and operational support necessary to enable communities to exercise that authority effectively.

This service-oriented model reflects a broader commitment to community agency and self-determination. Rather than imposing externally designed conservation interventions, Conserve Global works within landscapes at the invitation and behest of the communities themselves. Its role is to help build the governance structures, management systems, and technical capacities required for communities to take full ownership of conservation and development initiatives.

Central to the effectiveness of this approach is a commitment to listening first. Successful partnerships with frontline communities require a deep understanding of local realities, priorities, and knowledge systems. Too often, conservation interventions have been designed externally and implemented without fully engaging the lived experiences of the people most affected by them. Conserve Global’s approach begins with careful listening and participatory engagement in order to identify the most pressing challenges within a landscape. Evidence-led assessments—grounded both in empirical data and in the collective knowledge of community members—allow problems to be accurately diagnosed and contextualised.

Once challenges have been clearly identified and interrogated, solutions are developed collaboratively through processes of co-creation. This co-creative approach ensures that interventions reflect local priorities and are shaped by traditional ecological knowledge that has been accumulated over generations. Integrating scientific analysis with community knowledge systems produces more robust and culturally appropriate solutions. Equally important, co-creation fosters local ownership and buy-in, which are essential for the long-term sustainability of conservation initiatives.

Capacity transfer lies at the heart of these partnerships. Through training, mentorship, and institutional strengthening, organisations like Conserve Global aim to equip communities with the governance and management capabilities necessary to independently oversee their conservation landscapes. Over time, this process advances the agency of frontline communities, enabling them not only to manage ecosystems effectively but also to negotiate partnerships, access finance, and participate fully in emerging nature-based markets.

In this way, community–private partnerships can play a transformative role in the future of conservation in Sub-Saharan Africa. By aligning ecological stewardship with community empowerment and economic opportunity, these models offer a pathway toward conservation systems that are both socially just and environmentally effective. As climate change intensifies and pressure on natural resources grows, the importance of empowering the people who live within and depend upon these landscapes will only increase.

The conservation landscapes beyond national parks represent some of the most significant opportunities for safeguarding biodiversity while supporting human well-being. Ensuring their long-term sustainability requires recognising last-mile communities not as peripheral actors but as central custodians of Africa’s natural heritage. Through carefully designed partnerships, organisations such as Conserve Global are helping to build the capacity, institutions, and nature-based economies needed to turn this vision into reality. By listening first, co-creating solutions, and prioritising community sovereignty, such partnerships offer a promising framework for advancing inclusive, resilient, and enduring conservation across the continent.