**4. Discussion**

The findings showed that poverty in nearby communities, land tenure issues, increasing human populations and the system of PA governance were the main underlying issues that are fueling the myriads of challenges faced by PAs in Ghana. As indicated in the findings, indicators such as non-availability of medical facilities, quality education, decent housing, pipe-borne water, proper sanitation and electricity are lacking in most of the study communities. This lack of essential services is reflected in a poverty index of 0.261 for rural Ghana [58], which directly applies to most of the neighboring communities studied. This finding concurs with some earlier works, for example, Ayivor et al. [59], which ranked poverty in nearby communities as the most serious threat facing PAs in Ghana. This situation supports the views expressed in the broader conservation literature that PAs do not reduce poverty in nearby communities since the primary objective of their establishment is not human-centered, but to conserve biological diversity [18,28]. Tackling this issue requires multi-stakeholder collaboration, such as support from development agencies and the private sector, to promote pro-poor livelihood programs aimed at reducing poverty in these areas and household reliance on local natural resources.

On human population growth, the main issue of concern is not the national annual growth rate of 2.2% [60], but the fact that 89% of the neighboring communities were farmers who depended on limited land space for livelihood. Thus, any increase in population puts more pressure on the PAs through adjacent land-use. This is noteworthy, as the expansion in individual farms that share borders with the PAs can result in PA isolation in the absence of matrix-based conservation. Since most of the PA sizes are small, wildlife with a wide range, such as the elephant, invade farms within their range, resulting in farmer-wildlife conflict [57]. Studies in Cameroon, for instance, indicated that elephant raids accounted for about 70% loss of family production [61]. Several studies have shown that when neighboring communities are forced to absorb the costs of living with wildlife, local collaboration in PA managemen<sup>t</sup> may be seriously undermined [10,62,63]. The results of this assessment showed that 86% of those who had experienced crop raids by wildlife, including elephants, claimed that they did not support the PA concept. As Naughton et al. [64] noted, human-wildlife conflicts remain a major obstacle to community support for conservation. This requires the establishment of another form of a compensation system, besides the existing land compensation, to appease those whose farms are raided by elephants in particular. Ogra and Badola [63] conceptualized this type of compensation as being more closely based on ground-level realities, which implies that farmers whose crops are raided by wildlife should be compensated anytime such raids occur.

The governance type prevailing in all the PAs studied is the state-managed type in which decision making is centralized and the approach largely "exclusive." This approach, as earlier noted, puts a higher premium on ecological considerations than local community welfare. Me ffe et al. [34] referred to this approach as regulatory enforcement and regulation dictating decision-making. The forced eviction of settlers from Digya National Park by PA o fficials because their activities did not promote the ecological integrity of the park is an outcome of such a state-controlled governance type [57]. According to Cernea and Schmidt–Soltau [65], who based their argumen<sup>t</sup> on the "Impoverishment Risks and Reconstruction Model," if PAs achieve additional degrees of conservation, part of the cost is paid in the coin of additional impoverishment for the people violently uprooted from their habitat and not resettled. Thus, operating only within the "ecological and institutional context" [34] would result in poverty in nearby communities. This is the likely reason why about 50% of the local communities did not support the concept of PA establishment and would not collaborate in their management.

With regard to socio-economic benefits, a closer look at three out of the four listed benefits that had scores of at least 40% (i.e., microclimate enhancement, knowledge of wild animals and benefits from bushmeat), clearly shows that in real terms, two were intangible benefits. More so, benefits from bushmeat were illegitimate because the activity was illegal, and people caught engaging in it were criminalized and punished. The issue of high handedness by PA o fficials on PA o ffenders, however, tends to undermine the spirit of collaboration. According to Stern [66], such people who feel unwanted will do everything to outwit PA o fficials whom they consider as "police." Concerning employment benefits, which scored relatively high, the real situation observed was that most of the local beneficiaries were only engaged seasonally as casual laborers to clear boundary lines, or to serve as tour guards, and earned only meager wages. It should be noted that in protected area managemen<sup>t</sup> within the Africa context, any small percentage number of people that oppose PA establishment may have more than proportionate repercussions on PA goals and objectives. For instance, it takes only one or two people to initiate bush fires in a PA, which generally causes serious havoc to wildlife on an annual basis. This was the experience of Digya National Park and Gbele Resource Reserve (Table 3), where the perpetrators were never identified. Furthermore, in Gbele Resource Reserve, where group hunting was observed as a serious threat, it takes less than 10% of the population to perpetrate this act, but the impacts are grievous.

The research suggests that nature conservation, mainly where governance is vested in the state, does not bring enough economic benefits to local people and may result in conflicts because giving access to the local people to exploit the economic resources of the PA is seen to compromise the ecological integrity of the ecosystem being protected. However, since poverty levels are high in the neighbouring communities as evident in the findings, the communities placed a greater premium on economic benefits than other benefits and, thus, not appreciative of intangible benefits since these did not enhance their economic livelihood conditions. As a solution, Me ffe et al. [34], suggested meeting the interest of multiple stakeholders by operating within the converging point of "socio-economic context" and "institutional context," which they referred to as "win-win-win" partnerships. This converging point represents collaborative managemen<sup>t</sup> in which stakeholders of the economic context, ecological context and institutional context combine their interests in the managemen<sup>t</sup> of the protected areas such that none of the three becomes unduly disadvantaged. Such collaboration would assure the local communities that their rights are respected and would thus, engender their support for the e ffective managemen<sup>t</sup> of the protected areas.
