UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — While sustaining friendships from afar can be challenging, they may offer unexpected benefits for environmental conservation. These long-distance social ties can positively influence community-based conservation, according to a new study by an international team that includes Anne Pisor, assistant professor of anthropology at Penn State.

While the study, recently published in the journal Conservation Letters, focused on 28 fishing villages in northern Tanzania, the researchers said it has potential broader implications for global conservation efforts.

“When it comes to sustainably managing ecosystems like fisheries or forests, the question is: who is going to work together?” said Pisor, who is a co-funded faculty member in Penn State’s Social Science Research Institute. “It’s common to have a neighborhood or a village work together, but when a fishery or forest is really big, it takes multiple communities to get things done. Existing friendships between communities can be the backbone to those collaborations.”

The findings challenge the notion that external connections undermine conservation, said Kristopher Smith, lead author and a postdoctoral fellow at Washington State University’s Paul G. Allen School for Global Health.

“We show that these relationships can also foster trust and cooperation, essential for managing shared natural resources,” Smith said.

The researchers found that individuals with more friends in neighboring communities are significantly more likely to participate in activities aimed at sustainable fisheries management. Relative to a person with no long-distance friends, having even just one friend in another village led to a 15% increase in conservation activities such as beach cleanups, reporting illegal fishing practices and educating others about sustainable resource management.

The researchers attributed this effect to the unique support long-distance friends provide, such as loans to buy fishing equipment, which are harder to obtain locally. This mutual reliance fosters interdependence, creating incentives for both parties to protect shared resources.

For their analysis, the team conducted interviews with 1,317 participants in Tanzania’s Tanga region. They modeled how the number of long-distance relationships and levels of trust between people in different communities influenced participation in beach management unit activities. These locally governed organizations composed of fishers and other stakeholders oversee fisheries management — a task that requires collaboration across villages due to the shared nature of fishery resources.

The researchers found that long-distance friendships drive participation in the unit activities in two ways. First, individuals with more long-distance friends were directly more engaged in conservation actions. Second, these relationships helped build trust between communities, further encouraging cooperation across boundaries. Participants with high levels of trust in other communities were significantly more likely to engage in fisheries management activities compared to those with lower levels. Surprisingly, the researchers said, trust in local community members had little to no effect on participation, suggesting the unique role of cross-community ties in promoting collective action.

While the study highlights the benefits of long-distance friendships, it also acknowledges their potential downsides, according to the researchers. Previous research has shown that such ties can lead to "leakage," where friends collaborate to bypass conservation rules. For instance, they might share information about patrol schedules, enabling illegal activities.

“What’s unique about our findings is that we’re showing both sides of the coin,” Smith said. “While these relationships can lead to rule-breaking, they also have significant potential to drive conservation.”

The study’s findings are already being applied by local organizations like study collaborator Mwambao Coastal Community Network. This Tanzanian non-governmental organization works with fishery communities to build cross-village relationships through initiatives like periodic fishery closures and reopening events. These activities help demonstrate the tangible benefits of conservation and foster connections between communities.

“This research validates what organizations like Mwambao are already doing,” Smith said. “By providing evidence that building long-distance relationships has added benefits, this research can potentially guide large-scale initiatives of organizations like our collaborator Mwambao.”

Moving forward, the research team said they plan to explore the dynamics of long-distance relationships in other natural resource contexts, such as forestry and efforts to reduce carbon emissions. They want to know more about when long-distance relationships lead to leakage versus effective conservation.

According to the team, the findings could have broad implications for global conservation efforts, particularly as governments and organizations grapple with challenges like climate change and biodiversity loss. Conservation policies that encourage inter-community relationships, such as exchange programs or joint training sessions, could leverage the benefits of long-distance trust to scale sustainable practices.

 “Long-distance relationships have long been part of how people manage resource access,” Pisor said. “By working with these relationships, organizations can build on something tried and true when addressing a number of 21st-century problems.”

In addition to Smith and Pisor, other study contributors include independent researchers Bertha Aron, Kasambo Bernard, Paschal Fimbo, Haji Machano and Rose Kimesera; Jason Rubens, Sound Ocean Ltd, Tanzania; Mwambao Coastal Community Network researchers Lorna Slade, Jumanne Sobo and Ali Thani; and Monique Borgerhoff Mulder, University of California, Davis.

The U.S. National Science Foundation supported this work.

Editor’s note: A version of this press release was originally published on Washington State University’s website.