Online Reporter
Dr Moreangels Mbizah
CONSERVATION has long been presented as a moral imperative — a noble effort to safeguard the planet’s biodiversity for present and future generations.
Yet beneath this worthy objective lies an uncomfortable truth that the global conservation community can no longer afford to ignore: conservation, as historically practised and sometimes still implemented today, has too often marginalised the very people who live closest to nature and depend on it most.
From its origins in the colonial era, modern conservation was shaped by ideas that separated people from nature, portraying landscapes as “pristine wilderness” only when indigenous peoples and local communities were excluded.
Across Africa, Asia and Latin America, protected areas were created through forced removals, loss of land and erosion of cultural practices. These injustices were not accidental but were embedded in systems of power, race and exclusion that privileged Western worldviews over local realities.
While conservation has evolved, these legacies continue to cast a long shadow. Today’s global push to expand protected areas, notably the ambition to conserve 30 percent of the world’s land and oceans by 2030, risks repeating historical mistakes if human rights and social justice are treated as secondary concerns.
Conservation cannot succeed if it is built on the displacement, silencing or suffering of Black, Indigenous and People of Colour (BIPOC), particularly in the Global South.
One of the most troubling manifestations of this imbalance is the tendency, especially in international media and advocacy, to value animal lives above human lives. When wildlife is killed, global outrage is swift and loud.
When rural farmers lose children, livelihoods or lives to wildlife, the silence is often deafening. This imbalance does not merely reflect compassion for animals, but it reveals deeper patterns of “othering”, where some human lives are implicitly deemed less worthy of empathy and protection.
This is not an argument against conservation nor against caring deeply for wildlife. Rather, it is a call to do conservation differently — to recognise that justice, equity and inclusion are not optional add-ons but foundational to lasting conservation outcomes.
Evidence from around the world shows that where indigenous peoples and local communities have secure rights, real decision-making power and respect for their knowledge, biodiversity thrives.
A more just and effective conservation future rests on four interlinked pillars: rights, agency, challenge and education — a framework we describe as RACE.
First, right must be non-negotiable. Human rights, including land, resource and cultural rights are the bedrock of sustainable conservation. Conservation organisations, funders and governments alike carry a responsibility to ensure their actions do not harm communities, and to actively support legal recognition and protection of Indigenous and local land rights.
Second, agency matters. Communities must not merely be consulted; they must be empowered to lead, decide and benefit. Conservation imposed from the outside, no matter how well-intentioned, is unlikely to endure.
Locally led and co-managed approaches recognise that people who live with wildlife every day are not enemies of conservation, but its most essential partners.
Third, the sector must be willing to challenge harmful norms, including speaking out when conservation initiatives undermine community rights. Silence in the face of injustice is complicity. Conservation professionals, especially those with access to platforms and power, must use their voices to amplify those who are too often excluded from decision-making spaces.
Finally, education must flow in all directions. Conservation is not only about educating communities; it is equally about educating conservationists themselves. This includes confronting the colonial and racial histories of the field, recognising unconscious biases and valuing knowledge systems that sit outside Western science.
Zimbabwe, like many countries rich in biodiversity, sits at the crossroads of these debates. Our rural communities live on the frontline of conservation, bearing the costs of human-wildlife conflict while global audiences celebrate iconic species from afar. If conservation is to be truly sustainable, it must also be fair — leaving communities safer, more empowered and more hopeful than before.
The future of conservation depends on our willingness to confront uncomfortable truths and to reimagine our relationship with both people and nature. A conservation model rooted in justice is not only ethically right, it is the most pragmatic path to protecting biodiversity in a complex, unequal and rapidly changing world.
In embracing equity and inclusion, conservation does not lose its purpose. It finds its humanity — and ultimately, its strength.
n The writer, Dr Moreangels Mbizah, is the founder of Wildlife Conservation Action
