Are Large Carnivores the Real Issue? Solutions for Improving Conflict Management through Stakeholder Participation

Abstract

Social conflicts around large carnivores are increasing in Europe, often associated to the species expansion into human-modified and agricultural landscapes. Large carnivores can be seen as an added value by some but as a source of difficulties by others, depending on different values, attitudes, livelihoods, and everyday activities. Therefore, the effective involvement of the different interest groups is important to identify and shape tailored solutions that can potentially be implemented, complementing top-down approaches that might, on their own, result in lack of implementation and buy-in. To improve dialogue in conflictual situations, as part of a European project promoted by the European Parliament, we assessed the practical implementation of participatory processes in three sample areas in Europe where wolves and bears have recently been increasingly impacting human activities. Our results demonstrate that collaboration among different and generally contrasting groups is possible. Even in situations where large-carnivore impacts were seen as unsatisfactorily managed for many years, people were still willing and eager to be involved in alternative discussion processes hoping this would lead to concrete solutions. An important and common highlight among the three study areas was that all the management interventions agreed upon shared the general scope of improving the conditions of the groups most impacted by large carnivores. The process showed the importance of building trust and supporting dialogue for knowledge co-production and mitigation of conflicts between stakeholders and that controversial environmental issues have the potential to trigger a meaningful dialogue about broader societal issues. The direct involvement and support of competent authorities, as well as the upscaling of this process at larger administrative and social scales, remain important challenges.

Welcoming Wolves? Governing the Return of Large Carnivores in Traditional Pastoral Landscapes

“…We contend that considerations of vulnerability and relationships to the land are imperative to understand how governance can be improved and coexistence capacity increased. Consulting locals about these factors could elucidate barriers or risks to coexistence, for instance economic precarity, and the synergies between wolves, local livelihoods, identities, and wider trends (Salvatori et al, 2021). Our findings indicate that this perspective has hitherto been missing or hampered by institutional silos in both location A and B's conservation programs.…”

“…In a time where environmental agendas are being advanced to address the climate change and biodiversity crisis, it is crucial to establish just and effective methods of working with rural communities (Salvatori et al, 2021). We contend that facilitating coexistence with large carnivores in traditional pastoral landscapes can be symbolic of a wider pursuit to achieve sustainable and legitimate conservation governance and rural development programs.…”

“…Similarly, within certification schemes, the inclusion of some usually implies the exclusion of others, and since they are based on exclusivity, they cannot exceed certain quantities of output without reducing prices. These issues may never be fully resolved, and compromises will require an active dialogue about societal priorities, in addition to transparent decision-making, to ensure procedural as well as distributional justice of large carnivore governance (Bennett et al, 2019;Salvatori et al, 2021). As emphasized by Redpath et al (2013), the co-occurrence of conservation and livelihood preservation depends to a large extent on the willingness of parties to acknowledge and discuss shared problems, stresses and uncertainties, and address them collaboratively.…”

Planning for Human-Wildlife Coexistence: Conceptual Framework, Workshop Process, and a Model for Transdisciplinary Collaboration

“…Such changes obligatorily affect people, and the associated costs and benefits are not always distributed equally among interest groups or over time (e.g., for some groups the long-term benefit may imply shortterm costs). Therefore, creating the conditions for these groups to participate in decision-making is a moral imperative and also more promising, complementing top-down approaches that might, on their own, result in lack of buy-in and (Treves et al, 2009;Dietsch et al, 2021;Salvatori et al, 2021;Vucetich et al, 2021b).…”

Community-Based Conservation for the Sustainable Management of Conservation Conflicts: Learning from Practitioners

“…Local pastoral communities can face heavy burdens of co-existing with wild carnivores due to livestock depredation, with subsequent impacts on livelihoods and wellbeing [8][9][10][11]. Carnivores suffer from retaliatory killing, illegal poaching and trade, fragmentation or damage to habitat, and displacement or shrinkage of prey species populations [12,13].…”