Evolving motivations for participation in community-based conservation: A relational perspective

Successful outcomes of community-based conservation, both ecological and social, rely on local actors being motivated to engage at the outset of the programme and to sustain their motivation over time. Using semi-structured interviews, we explore the motivations of 22 community Conservation Officers who have participated in marine turtle conservation in Tanzania for more than two decades. We focus on factors that motivated initial participation, as well as those that contributed to sustaining their participation over the past 20 years. Our study reveals the intricate dynamics of motivational processes, including the influence of values, identities, autonomy, agency, and power, which are shaped by relationships between nature, people, and place. With these findings, we challenge dominant assumptions about economic motivations and highlight the risk of over-reliance on monetary incentives to drive participation in community-based conservation.