Understanding Conflicts About Wildlife

Conflicts about wildlife are usually portrayed and understood as resulting from the negative impacts of wildlife on human livelihoods or property. However, a greater depth of analysis reveals that many instances of human-wildlife conflict are often better understood as people-people conflict, wherein there is a clash of values between different human groups. Understanding Conflicts About Wildlife unites academics and practitioners from across the globe to develop a holistic view of these interactions. It considers the political and social dimensions of ‘human-wildlife conflicts’ alongside effective methodological approaches, and will be of value to academics, conservationists and policy makers.

Human-wildlife conflict is a major issue in conservation. As people encroach into natural habitats, and as conservation efforts restore wildlife to areas where they may have been absent for generations, contact between people and wild animals is growing. Some species, even the beautiful and endangered, can have serious impacts on human lives and livelihoods. Tigers kill people, elephants destroy crops and African wild dogs devastate sheep herds left unattended. Historically, people have responded to these threats by killing wildlife wherever possible, and this has led to the endangerment of many species that are difficult neighbours. The urgent need to conserve such species, however, demands coexistence of people and endangered wildlife. This book presents a variety of solutions to human-wildlife conflicts, including novel and traditional farming practices, offsetting the costs of wildlife damage through hunting and tourism, and the development of local and national policies.

This book won the 2023 The Wildlife Society Publication Award in the authored book category. Human-wildlife interactions increase exponentially as more and more humans and wildlife crowd into the same limited space. Such interactions often become conflicts when wildlife threaten human health and safety, well-being, or the food supply. This second edition of Human-Wildlife Interactions: From Conflict to Coexistence provides a comprehensive review of the severity of these problems and the methods used to resolve clashes between humans and wildlife. During his forty-year career as a wildlife professor and scientist, Dr. Michael Conover, founder of journal Human-Wildlife Interactions, has become a recognized leader of the scientific field of human-wildlife interactions. In this book, he presents the range of methods for wildlife damage management, including employing lethal methods; distributing supplemental food; changing the behavior of either humans or wildlife; and excluding or repelling wildlife. Backed by numerous case studies and informative side bars, the book documents resolutions to specific human-wildlife conflicts throughout the literature. Containing full color illustrations throughout, the second edition of Human-Wildlife Interactions: From Conflict to Coexistence provides authoritative coverage and depth of both theoretical and practical information. It serves as an invaluable resource for students, researchers, and professional wildlife managers. Disclaimer: Figure 7.7 (b) on page 251 was incorrectly attributed in previous printings. The photographer of figure 7.7 (b) is Cynthia Herrick.

Presents solutions to turn conflict into tolerance and coexistence, with an emphasis on the human dimensions of human-wildlife interactions.

As more and more people crowd onto less and less land, incidences of human-wildlife conflicts will only increase. A comprehensive overview of this emerging field, Resolving Human-Wildlife Conflicts: The Science of Wildlife Damage Management discusses the issues facing wildlife managers and anyone else dealing with interactions between wildlife and

An insightful guide to understanding conflicts over the conservation of biodiversity and groundbreaking strategies to deal with them.

"Human-wildlife conflict (HWC) is one of the most complex and urgent issues facing wildlife management and conservation today. Originally focused on the ecology and economics of wildlife damage, the study and mitigation of HWC has gradually expanded its scope to incorporate the human dimensions of the whole spectrum of human-wildlife relationships, from conflict to coexistence. Having the conflict-to-coexistence continuum as its leitmotiv, this book explores a variety of theories and methods currently used to address human-wildlife interactions, illustrated by case studies from around the world. It presents some key concepts in the field, such as values, emotions, social identity and tolerance, and a variety of insights and solutions to turn conflict into coexistence, from individual level to national scales, including conservation marketing, incremental and radical innovation, strategic planning, and socio-ecological systems. This volume will be of interest to a wide range of readers, including academics, researchers, students, practitioners and policy-makers"--

Human-wildlife conflict (HWC) has classically been defined as a situation where wildlife impacts humans negatively (physically, economically, or psychologically), and where humans likewise negatively impact wildlife. However, there is growing consensus that the conflict between people about wildlife is as important as the conflict between people and wildlife. HWC not only affects the conservation of one species in a particular geographic area, but also impacts the willingness of an individual, a community, and wider society to support conservation programs in general. This book explores the complexity inherent in these situations, covering the theory, principles, and practical applications of HWC work, making it accessible and usable for conservation practitioners, as well as of interest to researchers more concerned with a theoretical approach to the subject. Through a series of case studies, the book's authors and editors tackle a wide variety of subjects relating to conflict, from the challenges of wicked problems and common pool resources, to the roles that storytelling and religion can play in conflict. Throughout the book, the authors work with a Conservation Conflict Transformation (CCT) approach, adapted from the peacebuilding field to address the reality of conservation today. The authors utilise one of CCT's key analytic components, the Levels of Conflict model, as a tool to provide insight into their case studies. Although the examples discussed are from the world of marine conservation, the lessons they provide are applicable to a wide variety of global conservation issues, including those in the terrestrial realm. Human-Wildlife Conflict will be essential reading for graduate students and established researchers in the field of marine conservation biology. It will also be a valuable reference for a global audience of conservation practitioners, wildlife managers, and other conservation professionals.