COS 149-4 - CANCELLED - Structured decision making to mitigate negative human wildlife interactions - A case study of Elephants and Tigers

Background/Question/Methods

Competitive interactions between people and large mammals can result in injury or death of people or animals and cause detrimental economic and conservation impacts. The costs and frequency of these negative human-wildlife interactions (HWI) are increasing globally. HWI can create issues of safety and food security for people especially in rural areas and developing nations. Thus, practitioners are challenged to find ways to manage wildlife populations while maintaining human health and livelihoods. To address this challenge, our goal was to create a universally applicable model for managing negative HWI in a transparent, scientific, and participatory process. We used structured decision-making to decompose the complexities of HWI mitigation and provide an iterative and locally adaptable model to inform management. This model was supported by theoretical and empirical research across species and continents while using the fundamental tools of structured decision-making.

Results/Conclusions

The model helps practitioners identify fundamental objectives, and define specific, measurable attributes to quantify the expected success of decision alternatives. Furthermore, our model incorporates local stakeholder participation and double-loop learning in an iterative adaptive management approach. To demonstrate the model and its potential applications in the management and mitigation of conflicts, we use two species with high instances of conflict, the African savanna elephant (Loxodonta africana) and the Bengal tiger (Panthera tigris). Findings on these species demonstrate that our model can be customized according to local context and needs. Finally, our model provides an adaptive approach for promoting human-wildlife coexistence and the preservation of biodiversity globally.