Diagnosing scaling bottlenecks in ten community conservation initiatives in Southern and Eastern Africa

Pienkowski, Thomas, Clark, Matt, Jagadish, Arundhati, Albert, Aklei, Brar, Mohanjeet, Breedveld, Tarn, Chinangwa, Linda, Gohil, Deepali, Irumba, Deziderius, Kanaan, Ramzy, and others. (2025) Diagnosing scaling bottlenecks in ten community conservation initiatives in Southern and Eastern Africa. Diagnosing scaling bottlenecks in 10 community conservation initiatives in southern and eastern Africa, . (KAR id:112863)

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Official URL: https://conbio.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111...

Abstract

Scaling area-based conservation, including initiatives led or comanaged by Indigenous Peoples and local communities, is a flagship goal of the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework. Conservationists often aspire to scale initiatives, but this is rarely achieved in practice. Identifying and addressing factors that limit initiative adoption (i.e., bottlenecks) could improve scaling strategies. We used insightsfrom 84 expert surveys to identify potential risk factors and bottlenecks to scaling 10 community, area-based initiatives in southern and eastern Africa. The number of reported potential risk factors and bottlenecks varied among initiatives. However, unfair benefit sharing, unequal decision-making, inflexible rules, and top-down leadership were frequently identified as bottlenecks. Although adopting initiatives had costs (e.g., increased local conflicts, reduced local access to natural resources and cropland), most experts believed these costs were offset by other benefits and thus did not constitute bottlenecks. Our results did not capture local perspectives, but they suggest scaling strategies that strengthen environmental governance may support more socially just and durable approaches to meeting area-based conservation goals.

Item Type:	Article
Uncontrolled keywords:	30 by 30; adoption; community-based conservation; community-based natural resource management; engagement; other effective area-based conservation measures; scaling bottlenecks; scaling up; scaling out; scaling deep
Institutional Unit:	Schools > School of Natural Sciences Institutes > Durrell Institute of Conservation and Ecology
Former Institutional Unit:	There are no former institutional units.
Funders:	Research England (https://ror.org/02wxr8x18) UK Research and Innovation (https://ror.org/001aqnf71)
Depositing User:	Thomas Pienkowski
Date Deposited:	26 Jan 2026 12:10 UTC
Last Modified:	28 Jan 2026 10:12 UTC
Resource URI:	https://kar.kent.ac.uk/id/eprint/112863 (The current URI for this page, for reference purposes)

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