Equity in Conservation: Lessons from North Luangwa's Co-Governanve Experience

Equity is no longer a side note in conservation; it now shapes the agenda. The Kunming–Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework asks countries to run biodiversity governance fairly — both in how decisions are made and in what they deliver. The Sustainable Development Goals push in the same direction by tying environmental protection to social justice. Yet, translating equity from principle into practice is far from straightforward. A recent study by Kachali and Loos (2025)1 in Zambia’s North Luangwa Ecosystem offers a detailed look at how conservation equity is defined, implemented, and experienced — and why these perspectives can differ sharply between governance actors and local communities.

What does equity mean in conservation?

In environmental governance, equity is generally understood to contain three interrelated dimensions2,3:

• Distributive equity —The equitable distribution of the costs and benefits of conservation involves access to resources, financial gains from tourism and hunting, and the management of risks like crop damage or wildlife-related injuries.

• Procedural equity — Decision-making processes should be fair and inclusive. This includes transparency, representation, and meaningful opportunities for all affected groups to influence decisions.

• Recognitional equity — Acknowledgement and respect for the identities, values, and knowledge systems of different stakeholders. This includes recognition of cultural practices, historical rights, and local governance systems.

These dimensions are interconnected. For example, without acknowledgment of local knowledge and authority, participation risks becoming merely symbolic rather than substantive, thereby undermining both procedural and distributive equity.

The North Luangwa Ecosystem, located in northeastern Zambia, includes North Luangwa National Park and surrounding Game Management Areas (GMAs). These GMAs—Mukungule, Munyamadzi, and Musalangu—are part of Zambia’s long-standing approach to community-based natural resource management (CBNRM).

Through structures such as Community Resource Boards (CRBs) and Village Action Groups (VAGs), the system aims to balance biodiversity conservation and local livelihoods and well-being.

CBNRM: Linking conservation and communities

Zambia’s Community-Based Natural Resource Management (CBNRM) model is designed to integrate conservation goals with local socio-economic needs. Established in the 1980s, it combines state agencies, traditional authorities, and elected community representatives in hybrid governance structures such as Community Resources Boards (CRBs) and Village Action Groups (VAGs)4,5. In theory, Community-Based Natural Resource Management (CBNRM) was designed as a way to give local communities real influence over how natural resources are used and conserved, offering them a share of revenues from activities such as safari hunting while promoting long-term ecological sustainability6.

However, the reality often looks different. In practice, decision-making power is frequently concentrated at higher administrative levels, shaped by the priorities of central authorities, external donors, and the entrenched influence of local elites7,8. The experience in the North Luangwa region of Zambia offers a particularly clear illustration of these tensions.

Kachali and Loos (2025)1 worked in the three GMAs around North Luangwa National Park—Mukungule, Munyamadzi, and Musalangu. These zones were designed to buffer the park while allowing people to farm and live alongside wildlife. To see how that bargain plays out, the authors used interviews, focus groups, and field observation rather than relying on paperwork alone.

The research combined:

• 30 key informant interviews (government and NGO representatives),

• 20 focus group discussions with community members from six VAGs, and

• Participant observation to capture lived experiences and cultural context.

This design allowed the authors to compare institutional perspectives with local realities, and to analyse how different actors understood and applied the three equity dimensions.

Divergent perspectives on equity

Distributive equity: Benefits vs. burdens

NGO actors and government officials cited job creation, funding for local projects, and increased representation of women in leadership as evidence that their approach was fair. In one set of villages, figures from the Frankfurt Zoological Society suggest women’s share of seats in VAGs grew from about one in five in 2017 to half by 20209.

Community members, however, placed greater emphasis on the uneven distribution of conservation’s costs. Increases in human–wildlife conflict—up by 153% in Munyamadzi, 447% in Mukungule, and 541% in Musalangu—were experienced as a significant inequity, particularly in the absence of compensation. Focus group participants described losing crops, property, and in some cases, lives, without adequate support from wildlife authorities.

Procedural equity: Consultation without control

While formal participatory structures exist, such as CRBs and VAGs, decision-making power largely remains at national or NGO headquarters. Communities reported being consulted only after priorities had been set, and often felt they had to align with external agendas to secure resources. In some cases, benefits were withheld if communities resisted NGO guidelines.

This procedural imbalance extended to conflict response. Formerly, local hunters (Ba fundi) played a role in mitigating dangerous wildlife encounters. Today, such interventions must be authorised by the Department of National Parks and Wildlife, often too late to prevent damage.

Recognitional equity: The missing foundation

Perhaps the most significant gap identified was in recognitional equity. Communities felt that conservation policies prioritised wildlife over people — summed up in one frequently repeated phrase: “We have become animals, and the animals have become people.” The loss of customary practices, such as community-led hunting for problem animal control, was experienced not only as a procedural exclusion but also as an erasure of cultural identity.

In some villages, new rules on gender representation arrived without much discussion in some communities. A few welcomed the idea, but others felt it cut across the way decisions had always been made. That tension underscored one of the study’s central points: fair distribution, open process, and cultural recognition work together — pull one out and the others falter.

Interdependence of equity dimensions

A key insight from the study is that distributive, procedural, and recognitional equity are not separate checkboxes. Failures in one dimension tend to undermine the others. For example, a lack of recognition of the local authority can make participation tokenistic, which in turn erodes trust and perceptions of fairness in benefit-sharing.

Similar patterns appear in environmental justice research. Studies such as Martin et al. (2016)10 show that when attention centres on what is easy to count — such as income flow or meeting attendance — it can push aside harder-to-measure matters like whether people feel respected, retain control over their choices, or keep cultural practices alive.

Towards more equitable conservation

The authors recommend three primary shifts for conservation practice in North Luangwa and similar contexts:

1. Prioritise recognitional equity by training NGO and government staff in local histories, worldviews, and governance traditions, and by re-engaging culturally significant institutions such as Ba fundi in regulated forms.

2. Decentralise authority for rapid-response human–wildlife conflict mitigation to local bodies like VAGs, backed by resources and accountability mechanisms.

3. Create shared platforms for defining equity, where communities, state actors, and NGOs can negotiate priorities and trade-offs on equal terms.

   
   

These measures would move equity from being an instrument to support conservation goals, to being an intrinsic goal of conservation — one that defines success as much by the well-being and agency of local people as by the condition of wildlife populations.

Conclusion

The North Luangwa case makes clear that conservation equity is more than handing out benefits. It also means acknowledging how people see their land, what roles they play in looking after it, and their right to shape its future. CBNRM can help knit these elements together, but only when villagers have a real say in decisions and their traditions are built into the rules. Without that, “equity” becomes something people nod at politely while knowing it changes little.

References

1. Kachali, R. N., Dawson, N. M. & Loos, J. Institutional rearrangements in the North Luangwa ecosystem: implications of a shift to community-based natural resource management for equity in protected area governance. Heliyon 10, e33358 (2024).

2. Schlosberg, D. Theorising environmental justice: the expanding sphere of a discourse. Environ. Polit. 22, 37–55 (2013).

3. Schreckenberg, K., Franks, P., Martin, A. & Lang, B. Unpacking equity for protected area conservation. Parks 22, 11–26 (2016).

4. Marks, S. A. Contextual factors influencing a rural community and the development of a wildlife management regime in Zambia (1987–1997). J. Environ. Manag. 57, 259–274 (1999).

5. Government of the Republic of Zambia. The Zambia Wildlife Act, 2015 (Government Printer, Lusaka, 2015).

6. Berkes, F. Community-based conservation in a globalized world. Proc. Natl Acad. Sci. USA 104, 15188–15193 (2007).

7. Dressler, W. et al. From hope to crisis and back again? A critical history of the global CBNRM narrative. Environ. Conserv. 37, 5–15 (2010).

8. Kachali, R. N. & Loos, J. Unveiling disparities between planned and perceived equity arrangements in protected area co-governance: evidence from the North Luangwa Ecosystem in Zambia. Environ. Sci. Policy 169, 104068 (2025).

9. Frankfurt Zoological Society. North Luangwa National Park: Project Update (FZS, 2021).

10. Martin, A., Coolsaet, B., Corbera, E., Dawson, N. M., Fraser, J. A., Lehmann, I. & Rodriguez, I. Justice and conservation: the need to incorporate recognition. Biol. Conserv. 197, 254–261 (2016).