Conservation efforts generate antagonistic views from research and local communities across the world. What difference does the growing and dynamic network of conservation partnerships make to wildlife and local livelihoods in developing countries? This paper investigates the emerging partnerships that are characterized by assemblages of local and international agents, which call upon different kinds of support through co-financing and the mobilization of powerful technological and expatriate networks. The paper draws from Tanzania’s wildlife sector and specifically the Selous game reserve, which is currently an important site of experimentation in sustainability partnerships. The emerging configuration of these partnerships has necessitated the re-organization of national and local resource institutions, with significant impacts on relations of power between different agencies involved in wildlife protection and utilization. We find that, the more different actors converge to support conservation, the more complexity increases in the governance system, with poor results in terms of ecological and livelihood outcomes. As the network of partners for conservation expand, so is the area coverage for wildlife protection. However, insecurities continue to increase for wildlife (especially elephants that overflow into community lands), whilst local communities grapple with changing institutions, meanings and models of benefit and cost sharing.