Community-based conserved areas in advancing sustainable development and conservation in Sub-Saharan Africa

Abstract

This review evaluates the effectiveness of community-based conserved areas (CBCAs) in Sub-Saharan Africa, with an emphasis on their effectiveness in achieving biodiversity conservation objectives alongside improving the socioeconomic well-being of local communities. The findings reveal that while CBCAs have produced mixed outcomes for conservation, they tend to result in more adverse effects on local livelihoods, underscoring significant and persistent challenges. These include unsustainable funding mechanisms, increased poaching, habitat degradation, inequitable benefit-sharing, weak law enforcement, limited community participation in decision-making, land use conflicts, and human-wildlife conflicts. Through the lens of political ecology, these challenges are understood not merely as technical or ecological failures, but as outcomes of underlying power asymmetries, contested resource governance, and historically embedded socio-political structures. The effectiveness of CBCAs is thus contingent upon addressing these deeper systemic issues through inclusive governance, equitable resource distribution, and adaptive management that recognizes and negotiates competing interests. The future success of community-based conservation depends on a sustained commitment to transforming the political and institutional landscapes that shape conservation practices on the ground.