Evolving Our Understanding and Practice in Addressing Social Conflict and Stakeholder Engagement Around Conservation Translocations

Abstract

The conservation field has evolved to include an understanding of human values and attitudes toward wildlife; however, there is still too little emphasis on, and prioritization of, building understanding of the complex and context-specific social conflicts among people and groups involved with or impacted by conservation actions, including translocation. Both foci add value, but the latter is critical for building receptivity for conservation efforts and more thoughtfully designing appropriate context-specific processes for stakeholder engagement and shared decision-making. A deeper analysis of the social conflict dynamics involving the human relationships among individuals and groups engaged in a conservation conflict is needed as a first step in paving the way for the long-term success of conservation projects. Using a “Levels of Conflict” model offers a starting place for the analysis of social conflict often underpinning conservation translocation efforts. Further, we recommend employing a Conservation Conflict Transformation approach when considering conservation translocations to ensure that stakeholder engagement processes sufficiently engage the system, reconcile deep-rooted conflict among those involved and offer the best chance for shared progress and conservation success.

IUCN SSC guidelines on human-wildlife conflict and coexistence

“…Given the above considerations and the relatively poor success rate of problem animal translocation, the better course of action for the majority of human-wildlife conflict scenarios is to address human-wildlife conflict in situ, with actions identified through stakeholder consultation and participatory processes, and that are suited to the level and characteristics of conflict in that situation (Chapter 1, Levels of conflict over wildlife, Chapter 27, Preventing damage by wildlife, Chapter 15, Planning and theory of change; see also (Glikman et al, 2022a). Decision processes should take into careful consideration the points raised here and must be driven by evidence and practicality, not pressure from financial sources, especially those that claim to prioritise individual animal welfare over all other considerations.…”

“…However, if the impacts are displaced to another location, the situation is clearly not successfully managed across the wider landscape. This imposes the impact onto other communities, and is likely to increase the severity of human-human conflict by creating or fostering animosity between stakeholders (Glikman et al, 2022b) (see Chapter 1, Levels of conflict over wildlife).…”

“…There are important practical and ethical challenges of achieving effective engagement (Agrawal & Gibson, 1999;Chan et al, 2007;Waylen et al, 2010). If engagement is done badly, or is not tailored to the context or purpose of engagement, this can damage relationships and trust, and lead to serious injustice to local people and setbacks for conservation outcomes (see Chapter 1, Levels of conflict over wildlife) (Glikman et al, 2022a;A. Zimmermann, B.P.…”

Exploring Routes to Coexistence: Developing and Testing a Human–Elephant Conflict-Management Framework for African Elephant-Range Countries

“…As HEC is actually a conflict between people about the management of elephants and the use resources, the political economy and social dimensions need to be taken more into the focus of HEC analysis and management to move towards coexistence between elephants and people [42,43]. The great challenge conservation institutions face when targeting HEC management is the high complexity and dynamics within the socio-ecologic systems involved [44][45][46][47]. This complexity calls for a transdisciplinary approach, which may exceed single institutions' capacities [48][49][50].…”

“…Such quick solutions are detached from the complexity and dynamics of conflicts and fall short on mechanisms for systemic change. Importantly, they miss out on taking those who live with wildlife on board and do not reconcile relational and structural conflicts, resulting in short-term outcomes [47].…”