Conference Agenda

Drivers of public management preferences are key levers for human-wildlife coexistence, but have not been studied systematically across different wildlife types and social-ecological contexts. To address this gap, we assessed drivers of preferred population trend for various wildlife types (including whales, gazelles, deer, lions, leopards, pumas, wolves, and dingoes) based on a representative online survey with >10,000 respondents from 15 countries.

Globally, preferred population trend was explained mostly by wildlife-type specific predictors, but some respondent characteristics also played a role. The drivers we identified suggest that measures to increase encounters with liked species and decrease encounters with disliked ones can foster human-wildlife coexistence. Increasing people’s knowledge about biodiversity loss and wildlife, or their connectedness with nature, also seems promising.

Being unemployed or depending more strongly on natural resources had a negative effect on respondents’ perceived benefit-cost ratio and preferred population trend. This finding adds to existing evidence that costs associated with wildlife presence are distributed unequally, and that this inequality must be addressed to improve human-wildlife coexistence.

Finally, average preferred population trend, and the strength and direction of predictor effects varied across countries, highlighting the importance of tailoring strategies for human-wildlife coexistence to different social-ecological contexts.

The return of large carnivores is essential to restore trophic interactions, promote self-regulating ecosystems, and maintain biodiversity. Protective legislations, land use changes, and conservation projects have contributed to the recovery of the three large carnivores’ species (brown bear, wolf and Iberian lynx) in Spain.

We compiled fine-scale information on perceived benefits associated with large carnivores across Spain through an online questionnaire to environmental rangers. These rangers, associated with each of the 15 mainland regions, are engaged in fieldwork and are familiarized with wildlife species. The response rate varied, but in most of regions it exceeded 35%. Overall, more than 1000 rangers participated in the survey covering >60% of the territory in each region. They believed that among the large carnivores, the Iberian lynx was perceived to have more benefits than the brown bear and the wolf. Throughout the territory, the answers were consistent in recognizing three main benefits of the lynx: increasing biodiversity, ecosystem value of control-regulating other species, and esthetic value. Such benefits were also mentioned for the bear and wolf, albeit less frequently. This information collected will be used to assess how anthropogenic factors influence the environmental favorability of these large carnivores across Spain.

The intricate relationship between indigenous communities and their natural habitats forms a crucial part of the socio-ecological tapestry of conservation. This presentation delves into the role of the Ogiek Indigenous people in shaping the shared landscape of Mount Elgon, Kenya.

Mount Elgon in Kenya is an area of rich biodiversity, known for its unique and diverse ecosystems. The Ogiek have been pivotal in community-led conservation efforts, protecting the biodiversity-rich forests and maintaining a resilient relationship with the land despite attempted evictions and destructive national policies.

This talk demonstrates how the Ogiek’s traditional practices of honey production, livestock rearing, bamboo harvesting, as well as their belief system and deep knowledge of their land fosters wildlife and human well-being. It then demonstrates what could happen if the Ogiek are removed from their land, or are prevented from practicing their traditional management practices.

It highlights how their intimate knowledge of the environment contributes to the conservation of biodiversity and the synergy between traditional wisdom and modern conservation techniques, showcasing the Ogiek's unique contributions to Mount Elgon's shared landscape.

Attendees interested in interdisciplinary approaches to human-nature interactions will find this presentation a valuable addition to the ongoing dialogue on shared landscapes.

Wildlife populations in tropical forests are declining due to habitat destruction and overexploitation. For the top predators in South America’s deforestation frontiers, jaguar and puma, population viability is threatened by intensive deforestation and persecution. These threats vary among different land-actors. For example, large-scale ranchers tend to deforest and persecute predators, large-scale soybean producers to deforest, and some Indigenous Peoples to do neither. Here, we assess the cost-effectiveness of different conservation interventions to maintain viable large predator populations in the 1,100,000 km² Gran Chaco, a global deforestation hotspot due to beef and soy production. Based on a land system map structuring the diversity of land use actors and practices, we systematically test the cost-effectiveness of threat-specific interventions targeted at specific land systems. We spatially-explicitly modelled the populations’ changes under different interventions for different budget scenarios. We find that for a given budget, reducing persecution is more effective than reducing habitat destruction, as hunting has stronger and faster impacts, while avoiding deforestation or restoring forests is costly across broad areas. However, combining targeted interventions against both threats in key land systems brings greater benefits. Such land-system and actor-specific interventions were more effective than blanket or area-based conservation in maintaining large carnivore populations.

Socio-economic shocks such as wars, pandemics, political regime shifts, and economic recessions, have devastating impacts on people. They are also challenging for biodiversity, but these impacts are insufficiently understood. Large carnivores, in particular, could be vulnerable as shocks could exacerbate the complex threats they face, especially where people and carnivores share space. In this talk, we present a conceptual framework to unpack socio-economic shock impacts on large carnivores. We illustrate our framework using three case studies built through expert elicitation and case-study specific literature review: 1) Asiatic cheetahs and economic sanctions in Iran, 2) Jaguars and global commodity price shocks in Bolivia, and 3) Snow leopards and the breakdown of the Soviet Union in Kyrgyzstan. Our framework helped us structure causal relationships and create a common language across the case studies. We found that institutional stability is crucial for carnivore conservation and identified multi-level linkages between the global market economy and carnivore populations. We underscore the importance of creating resilient institutions focused on augmenting intrinsic motivations for conservation, building local capacities, and enhancing social stability to successfully continue sharing spaces with large carnivores even during turbulent times.

Fostering human-wildlife coexistence depends on understanding the complex interactions that link people and wildlife, including land use and human-wildlife conflict. Climate change is predicted to further complicate these interactions, for example through altering wildlife habitat, land-use patterns or predator-prey dynamics, thereby modifying human-wildlife encounters. Exploring how human-wildlife interactions might change under climate change and proposing climate-smart solutions to coexistence are therefore conservation priorities. We focused on the multiple-use landscapes of Central Asia where climate change impacts are forecasted to be strong, and where snow leopard, its prey, and pastoralists share the landscape. To understand how climate change might impact the interactions, we assessed the distribution and spatial overlap of snow leopard and mountain ungulates, its main prey, using habitat modelling under current and future climate. To assess pastoral use of the landscape, we mapped current livestock corrals and used them to predict future grazing patterns. Our results indicated an overall increase in suitable areas for snow leopard while prey distribution remained stable. Livestock pastures, however, are expected to increase in Tajikistan but decrease in Kyrgyzstan, with varied consequences for conflict. Our study highlights the necessity to consider the social-ecological context of the human-wildlife conflict under climate change in conservation planning.