From conflict to collaboration through inclusive landscape governance: Evidence from a contested landscape in Ghana
研究加纳西部野生动物走廊的环境退化与治理问题，通过多利益相关方协商达成共识，提出包容性景观治理的变革路径，为类似社会-环境挑战地区提供参考。
• We report on a multistakeholder negotiation process to develop a theory of change. • Drivers of landscape change and barriers to reconciling conflicting aims identified. • Stakeholders agree on a shared vision of inclusive landscape governance. • Short- to long-term goals and activities identified for a pathway of change. • State actors influence the pathway of change more than community representatives. The Western Wildlife Corridor (WWC) in Ghana’s Northern Savannah ecological zone is a contested landscape where efforts to reverse widespread environmental degradation often conflict with local livelihood concerns and broader development objectives. Despite policy measures to devolve natural resource decision-making authority, poor environmental management, persistent socioeconomic challenges, and increasingly limited livelihood opportunities for people living within the corridor prevail. This study investigates environmental degradation in the WWC and natural resource governance using information on stakeholder perceptions from stakeholder workshops, focus group discussions, and key informant interviews. We also explore how natural resource management might be strengthened to better deliver social, economic, and environmental goals. We found that despite a history of contestation, stakeholders were able to agree upon specific issues of common concern and generate a collaborative vision for the WWC landscape. Transitioning toward such a vision requires significant investment in strengthening current governance structures and building natural resource management capacity within the corridor and beyond. Furthermore, persistent challenges of conflicting stakeholder objectives and issues related to coordination, corruption, and non-inclusion in decision-making about natural resources must be addressed to advance progress. Stakeholders were able to formulate specific recommendations and a participatory theory of change to inform the development of a sustainable landscape management plan and future evidence-based policy that could steer the WWC toward a more resilient and multifunctional system that equitably supports livelihoods, biodiversity, and wider economic development. The methods for inclusive engagement in environmental decision-making are extrapolatable to other contexts facing similar social-environmental challenges.