Abstract
Conflicts between the interests of biodiversity conservation and other human activities pose a major threat to natural ecosystems and human well‐being, yet few methods exist to quantify their intensity and model their dynamics. We develop a categorization of conflict intensity based on the curve of conflict, a model originally used to track the escalation and deescalation of armed conflicts. Our categorization assigns six intensity levels reflecting the discourse and actions of stakeholders involved in a given conflict, from coexistence or collaboration to physical violence. Using a range of case studies, we demonstrate the value of our approach in quantifying conflict trends, estimating transition probabilities between conflict stages, and modeling conflict intensity as a function of relevant covariates. By taking an evidence‐based approach to quantifying stakeholder behavior, the proposed framework allows for a better understanding of the drivers of conservation conflict development across a diverse range of socioecological scenarios.
Highlights
Efforts to conserve biodiversity are often at odds with the needs and interests of other human activities—such as agriculture (Shackelford, Steward, German, Sait, & Benton, 2015) or urban development (Moilanen et al, 2011)— leading to widespread conservation conflicts
A common example of this is livestock loss as a result of predation by protected large carnivores, and the ensuing retaliatory killing of carnivore species by affected people (Van Eeden et al, 2018). Such measures implicitly frame the conflict as occurring between humans and wildlife, when in reality they are indicators of a larger conservation conflict characterized by the attitude and behavior of different human interest groups towards one another (Colvin, Witt, & Lacey, 2015; Dickman, 2010; Madden & McQuinn, 2014; Redpath et al, 2015; Zimmermann, McQuinn, & Macdonald, 2020)
We develop a categorization of conservation conflict intensity based on the curve of conflict model used to describe the escalation and deescalation of armed conflict (Crowley, Hinchliffe, & McDonald, 2017; Lund, 1996)
Summary
Efforts to conserve biodiversity are often at odds with the needs and interests of other human activities—such as agriculture (Shackelford, Steward, German, Sait, & Benton, 2015) or urban development (Moilanen et al, 2011)— leading to widespread conservation conflicts. A common example of this is livestock loss as a result of predation by protected large carnivores, and the ensuing retaliatory killing of carnivore species by affected people (Van Eeden et al, 2018) Such measures implicitly frame the conflict as occurring between humans and wildlife (so-called human–wildlife conflict; Redpath, Bhatia, & Young, 2015), when in reality they are indicators of a larger conservation conflict characterized by the attitude and behavior of different human interest groups towards one another (Colvin, Witt, & Lacey, 2015; Dickman, 2010; Madden & McQuinn, 2014; Redpath et al, 2015; Zimmermann, McQuinn, & Macdonald, 2020). We demonstrate the value of our approach using a range of case studies, highlighting common patterns and drivers of conflict escalation and deescalation
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