Abstract
Social conflicts around large carnivores are increasing in Europe, often associated to the species expansion into human-modified and agricultural landscapes. Large carnivores can be seen as an added value by some but as a source of difficulties by others, depending on different values, attitudes, livelihoods, and everyday activities. Therefore, the effective involvement of the different interest groups is important to identify and shape tailored solutions that can potentially be implemented, complementing top-down approaches that might, on their own, result in lack of implementation and buy-in. To improve dialogue in conflictual situations, as part of a European project promoted by the European Parliament, we assessed the practical implementation of participatory processes in three sample areas in Europe where wolves and bears have recently been increasingly impacting human activities. Our results demonstrate that collaboration among different and generally contrasting groups is possible. Even in situations where large-carnivore impacts were seen as unsatisfactorily managed for many years, people were still willing and eager to be involved in alternative discussion processes hoping this would lead to concrete solutions. An important and common highlight among the three study areas was that all the management interventions agreed upon shared the general scope of improving the conditions of the groups most impacted by large carnivores. The process showed the importance of building trust and supporting dialogue for knowledge co-production and mitigation of conflicts between stakeholders and that controversial environmental issues have the potential to trigger a meaningful dialogue about broader societal issues. The direct involvement and support of competent authorities, as well as the upscaling of this process at larger administrative and social scales, remain important challenges.
Highlights
Contact person was identified in each project area based on their knowledge of the area and their experience in carnivore conservation; their ability to represent a neutral position regarding large-carnivore management; and their willingness to engage in the process
Participatory processes are increasingly being used to facilitate discussions and decision making over large-carnivore management (e.g., [21,25]), in part because these species are prone to interaction with people and human activities and because large-carnivore conservation is known to generate polarized opinions among stakeholders
Stakeholders often focus on their perceived differences in values rather than valuing their complementary knowledge bases. This can result in large-carnivore management becoming an issue that amplifies social differences, where stakeholders’ resistance to positively validate each other’s views represents a key obstacle to dialogue
Summary
Sustainability 2021, 13, 4482 size and distribution range, with their presence being reported in areas where they had been absent for decades [2]. This increase can be considered a conservation success, it is associated with complex management challenges posed by large-carnivore presence in landscapes heavily shaped by human activities [3]. The presence of large carnivores can be perceived as a potential threat to human safety or health, to livestock or other property that may constitute livelihood income, or to hunting activities where people compete with carnivores over wild prey [4,10,11]. The recovery of large-carnivore populations is often entangled with issues of rural abandonment and serves to exacerbate perceptions of political and cultural marginality among rural communities [12,13,14]
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