- Protected areas are cornerstones of global biodiversity conservation strategy, yet their social impacts remain contentious.
- A recent study conducted by the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) in collaboration with Middlebury College examined perceptions of these areas among thousands of local residents living near five forested regions of Central Africa and Madagascar.
- “Conservation practice needs to take seriously how the people living near protected areas perceive those areas, and what benefits and harms they associate with them, in their full unevenness and complexity,” the authors of a new op-ed say.
- This article is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the authors, not necessarily of Mongabay.
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Protected areas (PAs) are cornerstones of global biodiversity conservation strategy, yet their social impacts remain contentious. The prevailing narrative often pits global benefits, like biodiversity protection and carbon sequestration, against local costs like restricted access to land and resources, particularly in lower-income nations.
This antagonistic framing — the interests of local people vs. the interests of other people elsewhere (or of other species entirely) — can lead to polarized politics with respect to PAs. There are valid reasons for concern, as increasing recognition of the problematic historical legacy of many protected areas created on the African continent rooted in colonial alienation, as well as ongoing human rights concerns in several PA systems, make it clear that PAs can cause harm. Many conservation organizations now recognize that it is critically important that efforts to protect land simultaneously protect the rights and interests of people living there, especially those of Indigenous and local communities.
Yet, if we want to protect local interests, we must first understand them. We don’t know as much as we need to about the ways that protected areas can, and do, serve the interests of the people living near them. Harm is often more evident than benefits, particularly in the case of acute episodes of violence or evictions, so much has been described about how protected areas can cause harm.
The village of Bapukeli at the entrance of the Okapi Wildlife Reserve, Democratic Republic of Congo. Indigenous hunter-gatherers divide their time between villages like this and camps deep in the forest. Image by Thomas Nicolon for FAO.
Still, grievances, harms and benefits can coexist simultaneously within the diversity of communities that live in proximity to protected areas. What’s more, benefits can be difficult to quantify, especially when acknowledging that people can benefit from PAs in ways that aren’t based on income or consumption. We know that we can’t assume that all people living near PAs experience them in the same way, but we don’t have a lot of comparable data speaking to the basic questions, like do people living near PAs feel that they benefit from them? If so, how? And how widespread are these feelings?
We tackled these questions in a study published in the Annals of the American Association of Geographers in June 2025 that examined perceptions of PAs among thousands of nearby households in five forested regions of Central Africa and Madagascar. While the majority of households interviewed reported deriving some form of benefit from PAs, responses confirmed that local experiences are far from homogenous. The extent and nature of perceived benefits varied dramatically, not just across different PAs, but significantly within the landscapes surrounding them. Understanding this unevenness is critical, as local perceptions directly influence community empowerment, engagement, and the ultimate success of conservation efforts.
This research conducted by the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) in collaboration with Middlebury College draws on surveys collected around five PAs where WCS has long-standing partnerships. The comprehensive study used standardized questionnaires administered in 2017 and 2018 by nearly 60 trained local enumerators. WCS field staff surveyed more than 3,500 households and moved beyond metrics like income to ask people directly if they felt they benefited from their neighboring PA and, if so, how.
Respondents’ perceptions were shaped by a complex interplay between the PA itself and the wider landscape context, the perceived counterfactual. In other words, what would life be like without the park? Would resources be more abundant, or would they be depleted by others? Do benefits come from the forest itself or from the organizations the PA attracts? The answers suggest a fascinating relationship between perceived benefits and the surrounding landscape, particularly the amount of remaining forest cover.
In areas like Madagascar’s Makira Natural Park and the eastern region of Kahuzi-Biega National Park (KBNP) in the Democratic Republic of Congo, where forests outside the park boundaries are largely gone, residents overwhelmingly reported that they benefited from the nearby PA. Intriguingly, they primarily cited ecosystem services like clean air, reliable water sources for agriculture, and climate stability. When a park holds the last significant stand of trees, its environmental functions become starkly apparent and appreciated.
A research team member (right) interviews a farmer near Nouabale-Ndoki National Park in the Republic of Congo about how local people consume bushmeat. Image ©️Brent Stirton/Getty Images for FAO, CIFOR, CIRAD, WCS and used with permission of the photographer.
Conversely, in the landscapes surrounding Nouablé-Ndoki National Park (NNNP) and Lac Télé Community Reserve (LTCR), both in the Republic of Congo, which are heavily forested even outside PA boundaries, few mentioned ecosystem services or benefits from forest resources like bushmeat or nontimber products, despite high reliance on these for livelihoods. Rather, in these places, the benefits people perceived stemmed almost entirely from external support brought by a PA’s presence, primarily jobs or development projects and inputs from NGOs. When forests are everywhere, their benefits aren’t necessarily attributed to the park — it’s the locally scarce resources like cash income and infrastructure provided by conservation organizations that stand out.
Okapi Wildlife Reserve (OWR) in the DRC presented an intermediate case, sitting closer to a forest frontier. Here, perceptions were mixed, with participants citing all types of benefits: forest extraction (hunting, collecting), forest existence (ecosystem services, heritage), and external support (jobs, projects) in roughly equal measure. Mapping these responses revealed further spatial nuances. Appreciation for forest resources was higher near the reserve’s edges, where forests may be becoming scarcer, while appreciation for external support was concentrated in more remote, interior areas. Worryingly, the areas valuing external support in OWR were also near areas where many felt no benefit, suggesting external investments might be polarizing if perceived as unequally distributed.
Responses suggest that different types of benefits have different spatial patterns; proximity to park boundaries matters for benefits like ecosystem services, while distance to NGO headquarters or project sites matters more for benefits from jobs or aid. The study also highlights the importance of the village scale. Perceptions often clustered within villages, differing significantly from neighboring ones, suggesting that shared local narratives or experiences play a powerful role. This is a crucial reminder for researchers to be transparent about site selection and the generalizability of findings based on studies in just a few communities.
These findings have immediate practical implications for protected area management. The research provides PA managers with a framework for conducting regular perception assessments within surrounding communities, helping them identify where interventions are most needed and which types of benefits resonate in different landscape contexts.
WCS has already made the Basic Necessities Survey (BNS), which includes these perception questions, the standard method for measuring the impact of conservation interventions on human well-being. Deployed every two to three years across more than 20 sites globally, the BNS helps field teams understand their conservation impact and continuously improve their interventions. WCS is actively training and supporting field programs to scale up the use of this standardized survey, ensuring that community perceptions and communally identified well-being indicators are systematically tracked and integrated into management approaches worldwide.
By understanding the spatial patterns of perceived benefits, managers can better allocate limited resources and design more targeted community engagement programs that embrace a human rights-based approach to conservation and address sources of conflict before they escalate.
An Indigenous Mbuti hunting group inside the Okapi Wildlife Reserve, Democratic Republic of Congo. Image ©️ Brent Stirton/Getty Images and used with permission of the photographer.
While this study offers valuable insights, we acknowledge its limitations. Data was collected by staff affiliated with the PA managing body, potentially influencing responses, and it did not capture perceived burdens alongside benefits. The KBNP surveys missed areas where Indigenous Batwa communities live and where significant conflict has occurred, omitting vital perspectives. The specific history of KBNP in the DRC faces criticism from rights groups for exclusive decision-making processes and the lack of recognition of Batwa peoples’ customary rights to land.
We also know that PAs are not monolithic. This study focused on PAs in a particular biome: humid tropical African forests, with particular management and governance contexts. Four of the five cases were protected government-run national parks; the fifth, LTCR, was an area allowing for more human use. In all instances, there were significant investments and support from WCS and other international conservation organizations. Importantly, the study does not include purely Indigenous-led or locally managed conservation areas.
To address these limitations and better understand how these patterns can be generalized, further research should explicitly investigate the burden side of the equation and test the relationship between forest cover and perceptions more explicitly, across diverse contexts. Future research should continue to prioritize collaborative designs that empower local voices, especially those designs that embrace the application of a human rights-based approach to conservation, complete with an operational grievance redress system that allows for issues to be raised and addressed in an equitable manner.
Moving forward, conservation practice needs to take seriously how the people living near PAs perceive those areas, and what benefits and harms they associate with them, in their full unevenness and complexity. Simply assuming benefits will “trickle down” or that one-size-fits-all interventions will work is naive. Practitioners must recognize that the geographic and socioeconomic context heavily influences how conservation initiatives are perceived and whether they are appreciated. Understanding the spatial patterns of perceived benefits (and burdens) can help tailor interventions, mitigate potential inequalities exacerbated by external support, and build more constructive relationships between PAs and local residents.
Protected areas will remain vital tools for conservation, and social dimensions in these spaces demand far more nuanced attention. Ultimately, this research demonstrates considerable heterogeneity in how PA-adjacent communities perceive benefits. Recognizing and navigating the uneven terrain of local perceptions is not just an academic exercise; it is fundamental to tailoring interventions and achieving conservation goals that are effective, equitable and just.
Heidi Kretser is the director of WCS’s Rights + Communities program. Diane Detoeuf is the program’s senior social science technical adviser. Michelle Wieland is the technical director of WCS’s Sudano-Sahel region. Jessica L’Roe is an associate professor of geography at Middlebury College in Vermont.
Related audio from Mongabay’s podcast: Mongabay features writer Ashoka Mukpo visited communities adjacent to protected areas in three African nations to assess the state of their conservation practices and get a better picture of the role of rangers in enforcing their protection, listen here:
See related reading:
Park guardians or destroyers? Study dissects 2 narratives of DRC’s Indigenous Batwa
Deadly raids are latest case of abuse against Indigenous Batwa in DRC park, groups say
Citation:
L’Roe, J., Detoeuf, D., Wieland, M., Hoerner, A., McMillan, D., Kretser, H. E., … Wilkie, D. (2025). Exploring the uneven terrain of perceived benefits from protected areas. Annals of the American Association of Geographers, 115(10), 2422-2438. doi:10.1080/24694452.2025.2505688
