Reconciling Political Ecology and Indigenous Knowledge Systems within the Conservation Landscape of Southern Africa

This thesis explores the ethical, political, and governance dynamics shaping antipoaching and conservation practice across Southern Africa, with Zimbabwe as a primary site of investigation. It responds to escalating pressures on biodiversity protection, including militarised enforcement, corruption, human–wildlife conflict, and market-driven illegal wildlife trade (IWT) by centering African philosophical perspectives and critically interrogating dominant conservation paradigms. Guided by political ecology and the relational ethics of indigenous knowledge systems such as Ubuntu, the study adopts a qualitative research design framed by reflexive thematic analysis (RTA). Semi-structured discussions were conducted with conservation professionals, community members, and governance actors. The analysis approaches conservation not as a neutral technical activity, but as a contested moral and political practice embedded in complex socio-historical contexts. Seven themes were generated through an interpretive, reflexive engagement with the data. These include community involvement and empowerment, conceptualised as ‘empowered stewardship’; the complex realities of human–wildlife conflict, framed as ‘challenges of co-existence’; IWT, understood as a series of ‘market-driven threats’; and tensions around poaching, anti-poaching, and militarisation, explored under the theme of ‘sustainable protection’. Further themes examine corruption and accountability through the lens of ‘integrity in conservation’; animal welfare as a dimension of ‘interconnected preservation’; and Ranger welfare, understood as a deeply embodied and emotional experience of conservation work. These themes reflect distinct but sometimes overlapping patterns of meaning, offering a nuanced account of how conservation is understood and framed by key conservation actors and how it is interpreted and contested within their accounts of broader stakeholder dynamics. The thesis contributes to critical conservation literature by advancing an empirically grounded, ethically attuned understanding of anti-poaching governance. It argues in favour reimagined conservation practices that are socially legitimate, culturally resonant, and attentive to both human and non-human wellbeing within postcolonial African contexts.