Conflict as a Component of, or Necessary Requirement of, Human-Wildlife “Coexistence”Ĭonflicts about wildlife are complex and nuanced, involving multiple stakeholders, whose priorities, viewpoints and agendas can clash ( Madden, 2004 Redpath et al., 2013 Madden and McQuinn, 2014). Additionally, we should be wary of adopting a dualistic model of “conflict” to “coexistence” or a continuum perspective because neither framework adequately represents the complex nature of human-wildlife interactions, which are multifaceted, dynamic and often grounded in time and place. I propose that we should consider conflict as one aspect or even a necessary condition of human-wildlife coexistence. However, we should not be too quick to drop conflict as part of the way we understand multi-species coexistence. Instead, or additionally, the emphasis is on encouraging a shift of focus from negative aspects of human-wildlife relationships, as often represented within a conservation conflicts framing ( Marchini et al., 2019) to one that acknowledges, and incorporates the idea, that human-wildlife relations are not inherently or solely negative in nature, with wildlife having significant value, and groups of people exhibiting tolerance for sharing space with wildlife. However, the move to adopt a coexistence focus appears driven by more than just a switch away from a human-victim: animal-perpetrator framing. refer to this earlier debate in their recent paper as the impetus to encourage further examination of current framing of human-wildlife interaction narratives ( Pooley et al., 2020). Arguments for revising terminology mirror an earlier debate promoting a rethink of the label “human-wildlife conflict,” persuasively expounded in Peterson et al. The language used to describe people-wildlife encounters influences the way we interpret and imagine these experiences and relationships ( Peterson et al., 2010 Hill, 2015). The more general emphasis appears to be on moving away from “conflict” both as a way of framing our thinking about human-wildlife interactions, and in the way we describe certain types of interaction. Some authors address that deficit, but meanings assigned to the term human-wildlife coexistence vary from human-wildlife coexistence as human-wildlife co-occurrence ( Harihar et al., 2013) to ideas of co-adaptation of humans and wildlife ( Carter and Linnell, 2016) and human-wildlife conflict and coexistence representing two endpoints of a continuum, where “coexistence” is understood as “peaceful coexistence” ( Frank, 2016). The meaning of human-wildlife coexistence is often implicit rather than explicit in much of the literature using the term ( Carter and Linnell, 2016). One response to this is a call for a reconfiguration of the ways in which researchers study these human wildlife interactions, encouraging a shift of focus from “conflict” to “coexistence” ( Frank and Glikman, 2019). While obscuring opportunities for better understanding the nuances of these complex relationships this could jeopardize conservation action and outcomes ( Hill and Webber, 2010 Pooley et al., 2020). There is increasing concern within the conservation community that the continued focus on conflict narratives risks making this the primary, or even the only, way of conceptualizing interactions between people and wildlife within this field. However, interactions between people and wildlife are much more varied and complex than this, as exemplified in various ethnographic works including the study of people-tiger relations in the Sundarbans, West Bengal ( Jalais, 2010), people-wildlife relations in Japan ( Knight, 2003) and people-badger relations in the UK ( Cassidy, 2019). Interactions commonly labeled as “human-wildlife conflict,” i.e., instances where wildlife presence and/or actions impact negatively on human interests, dominate the conservation science literature on human-wildlife interactions ( Hill, 2017 König et al., 2020).
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