Patterns and perceived sustainability of provisioning ecosystem services on the edge of a protected area in times of crisis

Beyond their conservation mandate, one of the underestimated strengths of protected areas (PAs) is the provision of safety nets to rural communities in times of social or climatic crises. Here we draw on our long-term research in Zimbabwe to illustrate the multiple services provided by PAs to subsistence farmers in the context of environmental change, socio-economic pressures and political crises. We studied the social-ecological determinants of the contribution from PAs to nutrition, material and energy provisioning services crucial to rural livelihoods. The contribution from PAs decreased with increasing distance from PAs, and showed a corresponding increase with population growth on the edge of PAs, except for nutrition. The distance from PAs and the population increase on the edge also contributed to the perceived stress on resources, an index of perceived sustainability in ecosystem services provision. Access to PAs and perceived stress varied with wealth, gender and age. Our results highlight potential drivers of the sustainability of PA-dependent subsistence livelihoods, including (1) changing resource availability, (2) changing human population, (3) honey pot-effects, and (4) buffering capacity of PAs. We stress the need to implement long-term monitoring of these social-ecological processes to support the management of PAs.