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With the increase in illegal resource harvesting in most protected areas (PAs), the need to understand the determinants and relationships between PAs and local communities to enhance wildlife conservation is increasingly becoming important. Using focus group discussions and interviews, we established the determinants of PA staff-community relationship from both PA staff and local communities’ viewpoints, and assessedperceptions of their relationship with each other. The study was guided by the following main research question, ‘What is the nature of the relationship between PA staff and local communities and what are the main factors influencing the relationship?’ Data were collected through focus group discussions and interviews from four PAs and their adjacent communities in Zimbabwe between July 2013 and February 2014. Our results showed that a total of seven determinants were identified as influencing PA staff-community relationship, i.e., benefit-sharing, human-wildlife conflict, compensation for losses from wildlife attacks, communication between PA staff and local communities, community participation in the management of CAMPFIRE projects, lack of community participation in tourism in PAs, and community perceptions of PA staff or PA staff perceptions of the community. Of the seven, only one determinant, benefit-sharing, was recorded as the main factor that differentially influencesthe perceptions of community and PA staff on their relationship. Furthermore, both the communities and PA staff reported mixed perceptions on their relationship with each other. We conclude that both communities’ and PA staff’s views on determinants are largely similar in all studied PAs irrespective of PA ownership, management and/or land use. Our findings could be relevant in policy making especially in developing countries in developing PA-community relationship framework in natural resource conservation.

We explored the relationships between protected area (PA) staff and adjacent communities in and around four PAs in Zimbabwe. A total of 938 local people and 133 PA staff participated in the survey conducted between July 2013 and February 2014. Our results showed that communities generally perceived a negative relationship with PA staff, while PA staff generally perceived a positive relationship with local communities. Only benefitsharing had a different effect on PA staff-community relationship for the PA staff and community samples. In contrast, communication, perceptions (both communities' and PA staff's), community involvement in conservation, history of PA creation, and problems caused by PA existence to the communities or by communities to PAs had the same effect on PA staff-community relationship from both perspectives. We recommend that both conservation agencies and communities should pay more attention to factors that influence PA staff-community relationships so as to nurture positive relationships between PA staff and local communities.

The objectives of this study were: (1) to determine community perceptions of wildlife conservation and tourism, and (2) to establish socio-demographic factors that influence community perceptions of wildlife conservation and tourism. Using closed-ended questionnaires, we collected data from July 2013 to February 2014 in four protected areas (PAs) and adjacent communities in Zimbabwe, i.e., Umfurudzi Park, Gonarezhou National Park, Matusadona National Park and Cawston Ranch. A total of 938 responded to the survey. The community in Gonarezhou had neutral perceptions of wildlife conservation, while those in Umfurudzi, Matusadona, and Cawston Ranch had positive perceptions of wildlife conservation. All four communities had negative perceptions of tourism.There were variable correlations between socio-demographic factors and community perceptions of wildlife conserve ation and tourism among the different study communities. We concluded that the PAs in question have not fully involved the communities in PA management and that benefits from natural resources are not fairly shared among stakeholders, as explained by the different perceptions communities had on wildlife conservation and tourism. We recommend that conservation agencies should: (i) nurture positive perceptions and address the possible determinants of negative perceptions by the communities, (ii) enhance community involvement and benefits from tourism, and (iii) consider community heterogeneity in conservation planning.