Unpacking the challenges of wildlife governance in community‐based conservation programs to promote human–wildlife coexistence

Abstract

One of the numerous global challenges today is how to promote biodiversity persistence and at the same time reduce poverty and improve livelihoods, especially in multiple-use landscapes shared by people and wildlife. In such landscapes, where the cost of sharing the landscape with large wildlife can be high, Community Based Natural Resource Management (CBNRM) program is a model promoted to offset negative wildlife impacts. However, such programs, that promote sustainable utilization of wildlife, are not always successful. To better understand how CBNRM governance systems enable or hinder human-wildlife coexistence, I implemented an 11-weeks participatory co-learning program in conservancies in the Zambezi region of Namibia. Framing human-wildlife relationships as occurring within complex social-ecological systems, participatory dialogues were used to unpack the system to better understand why human-wildlife conflict remains a challenge after 30 years of CBNRM in Namibia. From listening to communities I identified five key areas requiring improvement: (1) inefficient communication and transfer of information between management and community; (2) lack of policy and process clarity; (3) lack of support, knowledge, resources, and implementation of mitigation measures; (4) lack of accountability by both management and conservancy members; and (5) lack of skills and capacity by both management and conservancy members. To address these problem areas, I propose three key priority actions: (1) harmonize conservancy policies and management practices;(2) improve information flow; and (3) implement an adaptive management mitigation measure program. While this study focused on a small part of Namibia, I expect this methodology and many of the key findings and proposed interventions will be relevant for other areas applying collaborative approaches to improve human-wildlife coexistence.

Human–wildlife coexistence on the Qinghai–Tibet Plateau: The correlation between Tibetan Buddhist monasteries and avian community composition

“…The results demonstrate a significant positive correlation between bird abundance and the presence of monasteries. Our model takes This positive correlation represents that monastery residents use these sacred sites as a means of sharing the landscape with neighbouring wildlife communities, thus minimizing harmful anthropogenic changes in land use (Balyx, 2022) and reducing the cost of sharing landscape space between humans and wildlife (Kansky, 2022). Unlike typical human settlements, monasteries are unique in that they function to reduce the avoidance by animals of human disturbance through more intimate and less aggressive sharing behaviours (Jolly et al, 2022;Mills, 2013), resulting in increased ease of observing and recording animals around the vicinity of the monastery.…”

The challenges in establishing conservation-based ecotourism in the human-elephant conflict outside protected area: a literature review

“…Participation in decision-making processes related to ecotourism enhances social empowerment by strengthening community cohesion and integrity [50]. It also fosters a sense of pride and accomplishment among community members [51]. Some research addresses the importance of the ancillary component that is strongly related to local community participation [49] [52].…”

“…This component endorses community participation and empowerment from associated institutions or organizations to improve the expertise of tourism management [52], so that they can provide benefits to related parties such as the government, surrounding communities, tourists, the environment, and other stakeholders, including the value of the wildlife conservation [49]. The main challenges in establishing this community-based empowerment are inefficient communication, lack of policy clarity, and inadequate support and resources [51]. Other challenges related to community participation are inefficient transfer of information, lack of policy and process clarity, lack of support and implementation of mitigation measures, lack of accountability, and lack of skills and capacity [53].…”

“…A more thorough examination of institutions at various stages and a variety of accountability procedures is necessary due to the complexity of the social-ecological systems entwined in humanwildlife conflict [51]. Therefore, governance and management of sustainable tourism destinations are crucial for the success of ecotourism initiatives [49] and collaboration and coordination among stakeholders such as the government, local communities, and consumers to promote ecotourism literacy for the environment are needed [49].…”