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Calling on the concept of environmental justice in its distributive, procedural and recognition dimensions, we implemented a coelaborative scenario building approach to explore sustainable livelihoods pathways in four sites belonging to two Transfrontier Conservation Areas (TFCAs) in southern Africa. Grounded on participation and transdisciplinarity, as a foundation for decolonised anticipatory action research, we aimed at stimulating knowledge exchange and providing insights on the future of local livelihoods engaging experts living within these TFCAs. Our results show that wildlife and wildlife-related activities are not seen as the primary drivers of local livelihoods, despite the focus and investments of dominant stakeholders in these sectors. Instead, local governance and land use regulations emerged as key drivers in the four study sites. The state of natural resources, including water, and appropriate farming systems also appeared critical to sustain future livelihoods in TFCAs, together with the recognition of indigenous culture, knowledge and value systems. Nature conservation, especially in Africa, is rooted in its colonial past and struggles to free or decolonise itself from the habits of this past despite decades of reconsideration. To date, the enduring coloniality of conservation prevents local citizens from truly participating in the planning and designing of the TFCAs they live in, leaving room for limited benefits to local citizens and often limiting Indigenous people's capacity to conserve. A practical way forward is to consider environmental justice as a cement between the two pillars of the TFCA concept, that is, nature conservation and socio-economic development of local or neighbouring communities, as part of a more broadly and urgent need to rethink the relationships between people in, and with, the rest of nature.

Transfrontier Conservation Areas (TFCAs) were created to achieve the promotion of biodiversity conservation while at the same time offering better living conditions for local residents, most of them struggling to live from subsistence agriculture in semi-arid savannas. In addition, local communities bear most of the costs of conservation while getting few of the benefits. While substantial means are invested into biodiversity conservation in TFCAs, too little is invested in the development and well-being of local communities, compromising the health of both social and ecological systems in the long term. The ProSuLi project engaged with four communities living in two TFCAs in three countries (Botswana, Mozambique and Zimbabwe) to identify, co-design, implement and monitor interventions that could improve and diversify livelihoods and, at the same time, manage natural resources. The approach was transdisciplinary, demand-driven and fully participatory, as the project activities were designed by TFCA residents, the final beneficiaries, promoting more environmental justice. Technical support was provided by postgraduate students, senior researchers and other private, governmental and non-governmental institutions. The project's hypothesis was that collective action supported by targeted capacity building and co-designed governance systems could result in a better appropriation of one's livelihood and more sustainable use of natural resources for the benefit of the whole social-ecological system.