The Transfrontier Conservation Areas (TFCAs) in the SADC region contain numerous (and often very large) protected areas (PAs), community owned land and in some cases, private land. Achieving effective conservation and rural sustainable development in these landscapes is challenging because of growing population pressures, illegal hunting, encroachment of wild lands and a variety of other threats. At the same time, state wildlife agencies, communities and other parties regularly find themselves in the impossible situation of having vast PAs to manage with shortages in funding and staffing.

Partnerships between stakeholders and collaborative management approaches can help to overcome these challenges. The sharing of management responsibilities for protected areas also transfers full or partial ownership of natural resources to communities, thereby enhancing their conservation.

In preparation of the symposium the TFCA Network Steering Committee and other contributing partners agreed that the objectives of the SADC TFCA Network Symposium are to:
- Understand the different models for collaborative management support being applied in SADC TFCAs (and elsewhere in Africa), including the design of these models;
- Explore the roles and responsibilities of different parties engaged in these models;
- Identify mechanisms to manage expectations of and benefits to the parties engaging in collaborative
management support projects;
- Determine if these models have mechanisms to measure their effectiveness and build resilience of
these arrangements;
- Determine the contribution of these arrangements to achieving national, regional and international
obligations; and
- Highlight lessons learned and provide recommendations that can assist parties (both governments and
communities as well as prospective NGOs, private sector partners and ICPs) wishing to engage in collaborative management support projects.