Who must adapt to whom? Contested discourses on human–wolf coexistence and their impact on policy in Spain

Abstract

Emerging nature restoration agendas are increasing the pressure on rural communities to coexist with expanding wildlife, including large carnivores. There are different interpretations of coexistence, stemming from divergent ways of conceptualising and relating to nature. Yet there is limited understanding of how and why certain interpretations become dominant, and how this influences conservation policy and practice. This question is highly relevant for the management of wolves in Spain. Until recently, the national strategy allowed certain regional autonomy in creating and enacting coexistence policy, including through culling and sport hunting. However, in 2021, the national government declared wolves strictly protected throughout the country, despite strong contestations about whether and why it was necessary. We studied the discursive processes that co‐produced this policy shift. First, we explored interpretations among communities that share, or will share, space with wolves, using qualitative field data. Second, we triangulated local interpretations with framings in public media to identify prominent discourses about coexistence. Third, we traced how these discourses interacted with Spanish conservation policy: who was heard and why. We highlight three prominent discourses: wolf protectionism, traditionalism and pragmatism, each proposing a distinct pathway to coexistence with wolves. Through our policy analysis, we illuminate a dominance of protectionism within national politics, which justified a centralised technocratic pathway while downplaying place‐based approaches. The resulting coexistence policy was highly contested and appears to have increased social conflict over wolves. Our findings reveal knowledge hierarchies within Spanish policy frameworks that promotes ‘mainstream’ conservationists' narrow interpretation of what nature and coexistence should be. This has perpetuated an apolitical approach that is focussed on mediating direct impacts from wolves, rather than conflicting worldviews, and that undermines efforts to promote dialogue and local stewardship. While our research is centred on Spain, the findings are of broad relevance since they reveal structural barriers that constrain the incorporation of diverse knowledge systems into conservation policy, and subsequent transformations towards socially just and locally adapted coexistence programmes. Read the free Plain Language Summary for this article on the Journal blog.