The successes of COSMO's work were not without challenges, as to be expected in an area with high-income inequality and extreme poverty, where it is challenging to balance short and long-term interventions. Some critics argue that the organization's citizen participation model was so successful because it centered around wealthy landowners who used their socioeconomic advantages to lobby for the conservation of the wetland in a process that could have been more participatory. This disparity highlights a dynamic underlying environmentalists' efforts that some critics consider to be classist or exclusionary and the inherent (and real) challenge of balancing long-term sustainability with the immediate need (Matamanda & Chinozvina, 2020).

Environmentalists, on the other hand, have complained of a perceived lack of political will to protect the wetland throughout the years, despite Monavale's designation as a Ramsar wetland of international importance and the government's maintained commitment to its conservation. This exemplifies the all-too-common challenge that policy makers face around balancing addressing immediate needs (housing, jobs, food security.) with long-term planning (source water protection). Disputes between environmentalists, developers, and farmers are still common, and anthropogenic activities still threaten the wetlands (Mandishona, 2017). Although environmentalists cite the need to protect the wetland, insisting that a healthy wetland will yield the benefits of enhanced water quality and quantity for all, developers and farmers often counter with a more immediate need to expand into the protected area in order to ensure housing or food security in a rapidly urbanizing city, pointing to a complex confluence of social, economic and political factors that disincentivize environmental protection (Mandishona, 2017; Sithole & Goredema, 2013 ). Zimbabwe's Environmental Management Agency recognizes the need to ensure that local stakeholders' livelihoods and dignity are not endangered by environmentalist efforts and typically tries to involve stakeholders via community planning platforms when engaging in conservation activities (Kangata, 2020). However, given that Monavale Vlei is a Ramsar site and that much of the wetland is privately owned, the government's reach in managing this land and equitably including stakeholders is limited (Kangata, 2020).

A proposed solution for this challenge set forth by COSMO is a 'Working for Wetlands' program that would utilize international grants to set up a program that employs people in wetland conservation activities. This model could alleviate the small-scale farmers and socioeconomically disadvantaged citizens' economic need to encroach on wetlands for personal use (Wakeling, 2020).

Outcomes

COSMO's wetland conservation efforts have reaped significant benefits for the region's natural headwater wetland ecosystem. The wetland restoration efforts undertaken in Monavale Vlei have seen improvements in stabilizing the region's hydrology, and have resulted in more water in surrounding areas, less intense droughts, and increased water quality (Sharai, Tawanda & Gladman, 2020). Studies have also shown that the Monavale Vlei conservation efforts have proven successful, as the natural land cover (flora) has slowly been restored, and native wildlife has increasingly returned since conservation efforts began (Shoshore, 2016).

Water quality analyses from Monavale indicate good water quality in all parameters, although the Marimba River receives a lot of sewage waste upstream from Monavale (Nhiwatiwa, 2019). The water quality tests indicate an enhanced self-purifying capacity of the restored Monavale Vlei, thereby illustrating the wetland restoration efforts' positive effects which contribute to water security (Nhiwatiwa, 2019). This self-purifying capacity is particularly significant for water managers, as the city of Harare sits directly atop the catchment. Typically, the catchment's water quality is significantly deteriorated by anthropogenic activities and requires very intensive treatment with a number of different chemicals before it can be distributed for consumption (Kangata, 2020). As such, the wetlands' self-purifying capacity is an important component of water quality management because it ensures that water entering the treatment plants is of a higher quality and, thus, requires less treatment (Kangata, 2020).

Ultimately, the Monavale Vlei restoration and conservation efforts have successfully enhanced the water quality and quantity in the city of Harare and serve as a useful model of navigating the complexity of balancing short-term decisions and long-term planning. In 2005, Monavale Vlei was designated as a model for wetland conservation throughout Harare. Since then, COSMO, together with the umbrella organization Harare Wetlands Trust (registered in 2016), have engaged other low-density communities and community-based organizations (CBOs) in high density areas throughout Harare to educate these communities on how to protect their wetlands (including the legal, environmental, technical, and financial aspects of wetland protection and restoration) (Wakeling, 2020). In 2014, COSMO's conservation efforts expanded from the Monavale Vlei to the highly degraded Marlborough Vlei, another wetland important for Harare's water security (Nhiwatiwa, 2019). Despite occasional tensions between the groups, government officials and activists all agree that nature-based solutions are among the most effective means of enhancing water security in the city of Harare, and wetland conservation will surely remain an essential part of the city's environmental management strategy (Kangata, 2020).