New and more complex partnerships are emerging to address the sustainability of natural resource use in Tanzania. These partnerships variously link donors, governments, community-based organizations, non-governmental organizations (NGOs), business, certification agencies and other intermediaries. High expectations and many resources have been invested in these initiatives. Yet, we still do not know whether more sophisticated organizational structures, more stakeholders involved, and more advanced participatory processes have delivered better sustainability outcomes, and if so, in what sectors and under what circumstances. This presents preliminary results from the ‘New Partnerships for Sustainability’ (NEPSUS) research project, which assembles a multidisciplinary team to analyze sustainability partnerships in three key natural resource sectors in Tanzania: forestry, wildlife and coastal resources. The paper assesses comparatively whether co-management with local communities and private and civil society actors, and putatively more participatory processes in the governance of renewable resources, result in more equitable and sustainable livelihoods and environmental outcomes. It compares ‘more complex’ partnerships to relatively ‘simpler’, more traditional top-down and centralized management systems, and to instances where sustainability partnerships are not in place. These findings seek to inform a nuanced understanding of the political economy and ecology of conservation in Africa, and of what factors may help public authorities in successfully orchestrate national (and transnational) environmental governance.