Leandra Merz, University of Florida
Tierney Shimansky, University of Florida
This session will focus on insights into mitigating conflict and promoting a peaceful coexistence of humans and wildlife throughout Africa.
While humans have always interacted with wildlife, the scope and intensity of these interactions continues to increase. Many of these interactions are helpful or even neutral, but some can cause harm to human, wildlife, or both. These negative interactions are termed human-wildlife conflict and can include predation, crop raiding, habitat loss/degradation, disease transmission, poaching or killing of wildlife, and invasive species. When wildlife cause damage to humans and/or human livelihoods it can create animosity, which can lead to retaliatory or pre-emptive killing of wildlife. Finding ways to mitigate conflict and promote coexistence of humans and wildlife in shared spaces is vital for the survival and well-being of humans and wildlife.
This symposium will highlight some of the challenges and successes of conservation projects aimed at promoting human-wildlife coexistence throughout Africa. Our presenters will share insights from multiple projects throughout the continent. It will close with a roundtable discussion between participants on how we can use the insights and lessons learned to improve human-wildlife coexistence throughout Africa. While the symposium focuses on human-wildlife coexistence in Africa, the broad challenges and insights are relevant to other regions throughout the tropics.
Photo by: Ollivier Girard/CIFOR
The complexities of human-wildlife coexistence in Zambia’s Game Management Areas (Leandra Merz)
Human-Dog relationships across communities surrounding Ranomafana and Andasibe-Mantadia national parks, Madagascar (Akhil Kshirsagar)
The effects of governance type and scale on Community Conservation in Southern Africa (Tierney Shimansky)