Session Introduction: Evaluating Interventions To Facilitate Human-Wildlife Coexistence

Coexistence between humans and wildlife faces challenges for wildlife as well as human wellbeing and livelihoods. Learning, development, and transformative change in the adaptive use of management interventions across cultures... [ view full abstract ]

Coexistence between humans and wildlife faces challenges for wildlife as well as human wellbeing and livelihoods. Learning, development, and transformative change in the adaptive use of management interventions across cultures and species are highly needed. This calls for thorough evaluation of interventions on both ecological and human dimensions parameters. Existing evaluations of management interventions aimed at reducing the human-wildlife interaction often fail to include this in terdisciplinary evaluation, lacks relevant variables, and have a rather narrow contextualization towards either ecological or human dimensions. This session brings together researchers interested in interventions designed to facilitate human-wildlife coexistence. The aimis to raise questions regarding the need for rigorous multidisciplinary evaluation of management interventions, and to discuss the strengths and weaknesses of such interventions in relation to their potential to facilitate coexistence between humans and wildlife. The six presentations included covers a wide range of species including birds, fish and mammals. The presentations discuss challenges associated with the close interaction between human and wildlife and the design and evaluations of interventions designed to address these challenges to facilitate coexistence and mitigate conflicts. The cases discussed focus upon communicative efforts between stakeholders sometimes combined with introduction of specific management measures, and informational and educational programs. Conclusions are drawn regarding potential effects of the discussed interventions, their relevancy and applicability, and best practices for evaluations.