Community-Based Conservation for the Sustainable Management of Conservation Conflicts: Learning from Practitioners

Fostering Coexistence Between People and Large Carnivores in Africa: Using a Theory of Change to Identify Pathways to Impact and Their Underlying Assumptions

Coexistence with large carnivores poses challenges to human well-being, livelihoods, development, resource management, and policy. Even where people and carnivores have historically coexisted, traditional patterns of behavior toward large carnivores may be disrupted by wider processes of economic, social, political, and climate change. Conservation interventions have typically focused on changing behaviors of those living alongside large carnivores to promote sustainable practices. While these interventions remain important, their success is inextricably linked to broader socio-political contexts, including natural resource governance and equitable distribution of conservation-linked costs and benefits. In this context we propose a Theory of Change to identify logical pathways of action through which coexistence with large carnivores can be enhanced. We focus on Africa's dryland landscapes, known for their diverse guild of large carnivores that remain relatively widespread across the continent. We review the literature to understand coexistence and its challenges; explain our Theory of Change, including expected outcomes and pathways to impact; and discuss how our model could be implemented and operationalized. Our analysis draws on the experience of coauthors, who are scientists and practitioners, and on literature from conservation, political ecology, and anthropology to explore the challenges, local realities, and place-based conditions under which expected outcomes succeed or fail. Three pathways to impact were identified: (a) putting in place good governance harmonized across geographic scales; (b) addressing coexistence at the landscape level; and (c) reducing costs and increasing benefits of sharing a landscape with large carnivores. Coordinated conservation across the extensive, and potentially transboundary, landscapes needed by large carnivores requires harmonization of top-down approaches with bottom-up community-based conservation. We propose adaptive co-management approaches combined with processes for active community engagement and informed consent as useful dynamic mechanisms for navigating through this contested space, while enabling adaptation to climate change. Success depends on strengthening underlying enabling conditions, including governance, capacity, local empowerment, effective monitoring, and sustainable financial support. Implementing the Theory of Change requires ongoing monitoring and evaluation to inform adaptation and build confidence in the model. Overall, the model provides a flexible and practical framework that can be adapted to dynamic local socio-ecological contexts.

A Need for Context-Based Conservation: Incorporating Local Knowledge to Mitigate Livestock Predation by Large Carnivores

Mitigating livestock predation by carnivores is crucial to ensure carnivore conservation and facilitate human-carnivore coexistence. Mitigation measures proposed by conservation agencies, however, are often technocratic and perceived as being an external imposition on the local community. Herders affected by the depredation may have the knowledge to design locally relevant solutions, but they might lack financial and technical support to implement these effectively. Their inability to act can result in the communities being viewed as antagonistic rather than a part of the solution. We present a case study on co-development of a conservation intervention by a traditional pastoral community together with a conservation NGO, to mitigate livestock depredation inside night-time corrals in Ladakh, India. Between January and June 2020, livestock corrals in Sumdoo TR village were attacked 10 times by carnivores such as snow leopards and wolves, killing over 100 sheep, goat, yak, and horses and causing loses of over 10,400 USD. Local people were agitated, and there were strong demands for capture or removal of the carnivores from the area. We operationalized the PARTNERS (Presence, Aptness, Respect, Transparency, Negotiation, Empathy, Responsiveness, and Strategic Support) principles framework for community-based conservation to help the village effectively implement an intervention based on a novel predator-proof corral design conceptualized by the community. We demonstrate that empowering the community to design and implement a conservation intervention helped them take ownership of the effort, improve trust with conservation agencies, and hence likely to be a long-term solution to conservation conflicts in the region. Our approach of using the PARTNERS principles has relevance for conservation agencies who are trying to implement interventions, particularly those geared toward reducing livestock depredation by carnivores. Our approach further helps communities to view themselves as part of the solution and not the problem.