Although wildlife management models across the world have since the early 1980s shifted from top-down fortress conservation to different labels of people-friendly community-based conservation, their outcomes remain contested. This paper explores how, and in whose interests, approaches to wildlife conservation in Malawi have been reconfigured from fortress conservation to market–community collaborative management. Based on qualitative field data, we demonstrate how varying levels of community participation in the processes of wildlife conservation transformed the identities and interests of powerful groups of people regarding wildlife conservation in the Majete Wildlife Reserve. We highlight how commodification and monetarization of wildlife conservation served the interests of the emergent powerful groups whilst marginalizing those of the weak. The work indicates how new community identities with regard to wildlife conservation mask the power hegemonies that dictate mechanisms of inclusion and exclusion regarding natural resource use.

Delegated protected area management (transferring management responsibilities from a public to a private partner) has been promoted to give impetus to ailing protected areas in West and Central Africa. Since their inception in 2005, the number of partnerships has increased to 20 protected areas covering c. 250,000 km2, an area similar to that of the UK. A review of the lessons learnt from these first 15 years shows that delegated management has improved day-to-day management of these protected areas. There remain, however, challenges with funding and with the capacity of national managerial staff, and also concerns regarding human rights. Based on an analysis of these challenges, I develop five recommendations to guide more mature delegated management: governments should (1) ensure an enabling legal–procedural environment; and (2) prepare delegated management contracts systematically; (3) private partners should render themselves dispensable through capacity building of national managerial staff and by initiating sustainable financing mechanisms; (4) governments and private partners alike should respect human rights and build coalitions with communities; (5) governments, private partners and funders should strive to delegate non-core management tasks, such as tourist guiding and reception, community development and research, to specialized locally-based individuals and organizations. Although these recommendations have a specific West–Central African perspective, they have relevance for the increasing number of delegated management initiatives elsewhere in Africa and beyond.