Collaborative governance and benefit sharing in liuwa plain national park, western Zambia

Abstract

Several models of public private partnerships have emerged focusing on wealth creation from high value resources, risk distribution through cost and benefit sharing, and prevention of loss of biodiversity through collaboration among members of the public and private sectors and local communities. However, there remain many information gaps underlying their social-ecological system performance. A case study of Liuwa Plain National Park (3,660 km 2 ), western Zambia, to demonstrate the relationship between social capital and operational management by multiple partners between 2004 and 2011 was carried out. Literature review, expert knowledge and interviews of 57 informants with historical perspectives of the area were employed. We determined that social-economic-ecological gains and benefit distribution were influenced by the capacity of partners to negotiate collective interests. Intra and inter-partnership networking, social learning and differential capacity were also important factors.