Planning for coexistence: spatial modelling meets the behavioural sciences

The term 'human-wildlife coexistence' conveys two fundamental meanings in the context of wildlife science. One of them is explicit and objective: it is when humans and wildlife exist together. In other words, they occupy, at... [ view full abstract ]

The term 'human-wildlife coexistence' conveys two fundamental meanings in the context of wildlife science. One of them is explicit and objective: it is when humans and wildlife exist together. In other words, they occupy, at the same time, the same space. Coexistence is, therefore, essentially spatial. The second meaning, perhaps less explicit and more subjective, concerns how humans live together with wildlife. As opposed to conflict, coexistence suggests

some level of harmony, tolerance, conformity, that results in a non-aggressive interaction. It has to do with human behaviour. There has been an increase in the application of spatial analyses for informing decisions about better ways to protect wildlife. But these analyses typically fail to take human behaviour into account. On the other hand, there has been a great progress in the understanding of the factors that determine human behaviour - with an emphasis on the individual level - in the context of human-wildlife interaction. But behavioural sciences typically ignore space. An approach that integrates the spatial and behavioural dimensions of coexistence would be, therefore, a new and promising field to be explored. It would essentially involve understanding how ecological and socio-political factors at difference scales affect individual behaviour toward wildlife. An application would be to identify the scale at which decision making is most cost-effective (e.g. a regional policy of incentive to agriculture as opposed to the conventional technical fix for wildlife damage at the ranch/farm level). We discuss the potential applications of the burgeoning fields of decision science, prioritization techniques, spatial modelling, and big data analytics - when data on the behaviour, capacity and willingness of stakeholders to effectively engage in planning is incorporated - to inform decisions regarding human-wildlife conflict and coexistence, and propose a framework for integrating disciplines and stakeholders in the decision making for human-wildlife coexistence.