Abstract
The Swedish wolf population has rebounded from near extinction in the 1960s to around 365 individuals in 2020, after the implementation of the Hunting Act (jaktlagen) in 1966. This recent increase in the wolf population has evoked a serious divide between “pro-wolf” and “anti-wolf” Swedish citizens. Despite the continuous efforts by the Swedish government to reconcile this antagonism, the conflicts are persistent with a sign of impasse. In this paper, we present a modelling tool, which can bring transparent and “structured dialogue to the opposing positions.” This approach includes a stylized framework for quantitative modelling of stakeholders’ satisfaction levels regarding their preferred size of the wildlife population in question, based on the concept of satisfaction functions. We argue that this framework may contribute to conflict resolution by bringing a common understanding among stakeholders, facilitate a societal discourse, and potentially help to assess likely support for conservation policies. We present a showcase application of this modeling tool in the context of the conflict over the Swedish wolf conservation policies. The model is informed using a thorough literature review as well as interviews, which identified relevant stakeholder groups and respective drivers of their attitudes towards wolves.
Highlights
The Swedish wolf population has gone through a significant change in history as people’s attitudes towards them have fluctuated
This paper presents a systematic framework for analyzing the drivers of stakeholders with conflicting attitudes regarding wildlife management
The framework uses satisfaction functions to model the relationships between the drivers of stakeholders and the wolf population in Sweden
Summary
The Swedish wolf population has gone through a significant change in history as people’s attitudes towards them have fluctuated. During the last four decades, the reappearance of wolves has induced a series of social problems and contentious debates within the Swedish society (Ericsson and Heberlein 2003; Ednarsson 2006; Karlsson and Sjöström 2007; Eriksson 2013; Stohr and Coimbra 2013; Rogers 2014; Nilsson et al 2020; Skogen and Krange 2020).
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