Catalyzing community-led conservation governance through integrated conservation and development in coastal Mozambique

Between 2008 and 2018, the CARE-World Wildlife Fund Alliance implemented an integrated conservation and development project in the Primeiras e Segundas region of Mozambique to address intersecting challenges of poverty, food insecurity and biodiversity loss. The project aimed to catalyze the development of robust community-led governance of coastal resources and generate insights concerning the interplay between conservation and development interventions. After ten years, three of the four communities in this study appear to have been relatively successful in promoting compliance with conservation rules by ensuring the continuity of local enforcement and establishing linkages with district government officials. In contrast, a lack of nested governance and high levels of food insecurity played an important role in the collapse of rule enforcement in the fourth community and continues to generate challenges across all four communities. Overall, the results suggest that external partners should continue offering technical and financial support for community-led governance until fair and effective systems for rule enforcement and nested governance structures have been firmly established. Furthermore, aligning investments in local governance with development interventions can strengthen community support for conservation by addressing underlying drivers of non-compliance and environmental degradation.