Editorial: Understanding Coexistence With Wildlife

Abstract

As humans and wildlife come into increasing contact under the pressures of climate change, human development, successful conservation and wildlife recovery, and zoonoses, it is urgent that we learn to facilitate coexistence with wildlife in shared multi-use landscapes, for the wellbeing of both wildlife and people. The terms “human-wildlife conflict” and “human-wildlife coexistence” are both used in work aiming to achieve this, but in both cases a variety of definitions exist. While the term “coexistence” is being increasingly mentioned, possibly linked to a preference for a positive framing of human-wildlife interactions in particular, it is not often defined (see however Pooley in this special issue), and remains understudied. This is partly because conservation scientists are less familiar and less comfortable with the kinds of questions and methodologies required to study human-wildlife coexistence. It is also easier to study things you can count (impacts, e.g., attacks, extent of damage or frequency of interactions) than coexistence, which often involves not doing things (e.g., refraining from retaliation or protesting). This collection of papers offers the most comprehensive and cross disciplinary examination of human-wildlife coexistence published so far.

Topics & Concepts