Скачать или смотреть Understanding the Prospects of Measuring Human Wildlife Coexistence by Dr Avantika Thapa

Conservation is shifting from land sparing to land sharing as little land remains to spare. This shift pressures humans to coexist with wildlife, reflected in laws and policies that criminalize lethal control of wild animals. The Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), an international instrument for biodiversity conservation, emphasizes human-wildlife coexistence in its "2050 vision" for harmony with nature. However, past failures to meet biodiversity targets and insights from studies and intergovernmental bodies highlight the lack of measurable indicators and frameworks for assessing human-wildlife coexistence (HWCox).

To address this gap, we propose a preliminary framework offering a pathway to measure HWCox in shared landscapes. It suggests three key continuums—space use by wildlife, wildlife activity patterns, and human attitudes toward wildlife—to calculate an HWCox score for species in shared landscapes. Measuring these factors simultaneously on a predefined scale enables relative assessment and cross-site comparisons. This framework aims to help researchers model and visualize the complexity of human-wildlife interactions.

About the Speaker:

Born and brought up in a small town in the outskirts of Darjeeling, Dr Avantika has received academic training in the field of zoology. After studying the distribution patterns, habitat and behaviour of pheasants and other wildlife species in Darjeeling for my PhD, she came to the realisation that human behaviour is also an integral part of any wild animal’s habitat. This realisation made me turn towards humans living near wildlife habitats, their way of life and their behaviour towards wildlife. She aims to detangle the complexities of human-wildlife conflict through the lens of ecology, animal and human behaviour to facilitate human-wildlife Coexistence.