Conservation and Development Interventions (CDIs) aim to promote sustainable natural resource use and contribute to both biodiversity conservation (or restoration) and human well-being. Their long-term impact on social-ecological interactions hinges on their transformative potential to achieve sustainability. In this perspective paper, we categorize CDIs based on their strategies for achieving transformative change, empowering decision-makers to guide social-ecological systems towards sustainability. We classify CDIs by their specific dependencies between values, rules, and knowledge systems in decision-making, power relations, and environmental justice in creating transformations. Based on this classification, we identify three ‘realms’ of CDI: (1) the realm of “management”, i.e., interventions for a just and sustainable natural resource use happen at a broad but shallow level through management design and content. Here, formal rules and visible power structures dominate to achieve distributive justice; (2) the realm of “understanding”, i.e., interventions that offer a better understanding of knowledge diversity and shedding light on invisible power structures by addressing procedural justice; (3) the realm of “engagement”, i.e., interventions that elucidate the underlying human value system and uncover hidden power structures, e.g., by analysing social discourses and thereby deeply engaging with recognitional justice in sustainable natural resource use. This work suggests that CDIs can enhance their capacity to drive transformative change towards promoting sustainable natural resource use by strategically addressing and actively involving all three realms.