Conventional thinking: “human-wildlife conflict is a problem that needs to be controlled”. But this is only one frame. Frames are “cognitive structures that help humans to make sense of the world by suggesting which component of a complex reality to consider” (Wilhelm-Rechmann et al. 2011).They influence thoughts, plans and practices. Analysing frames raises awareness of different types of human-wildlife conflicts, situations & interventions; brings attention to research needs for human-wildlife coexistence strategies; challenges what is ‘obvious’; and seeks innovative solutions through dialogue. A typology of frames provides the foundations for comparison.

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It’s all in the way we frame it
We started looking at the literature and we found
A few references
http://www.nmmu.ac.za/sru
1. Sustainability Research Unit, Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University, George, South Africa.
2. South African Na@onal Parks, Skukuza, South Africa.
P. Botes1, C. Wigley-Coetsee1, 2, C. Guerbois1 & C. Fabricius1,
Framing ‘Human-Wildlife Conflict’ Management:
a proposed typology and research issues
Research quesDons
Proposed typology of frames
Holling, C. S., and G. K. Meffe. 1996. Command and control and the pathology of natural resource management. Conservation Biology 10:328–337.
Ludwig, D. 2001. The era of management is over. Ecosystems 4:758–764.
Peterson, M. N., Birckhead J. L., Leong K., Peterson M. J., & Peterson T. R. 2010. Rearticulating the myth of human–wildlife conflict. Conservation Letters 3:74–82.
Redpath, S. M., S. Bhatia, and J. Young. 2015. Tilting at wildlife: reconsidering human–wildlife conflict. Oryx 49:222–225.
Wilhelm-Rechmann, A., and R. M. Cowling. 2011. Framing biodiversity conservation for decision makers: insights from four South African municipalities. Conservation
Letters 4:73–80.
Peet Botes botespeet@gmail.com
corli.coetsee@sanparks.org
chloe.guerbois@nmmu.ac.za
christo.fabricius@nmmu.ac.za
• Conventional thinking: “human-wildlife conflict is a problem that needs to be
controlled”…
• Frames are “cognitive structures that help humans to make sense of the world by
suggesting which component of a complex reality to consider” (Wilhelm-Rechmann et
al. 2011).They influence thoughts, plans and practices.
• Analysing frames :
• raises awareness of different types of human-wildlife conflicts, situations &
interventions,
• brings attention to research needs for human-wildlife coexistence strategies
• challenges what is ‘obvious’
• seeks innovative solutions through dialogue
• A typology of frames provides the foundations for comparison
1. How is the management of ‘human-wildlife conflict’ framed?
2. What are the unintended consequences of different frames?
Management implicaDons
• Any HWC interventions plan should consider feedbacks between Humans and Wildlife
• ‘Controlling’ frames are more prone to unintended consequences
• Payments-based HWC interventions tend to decouple people from wildlife/nature
• HWC interventions should be more explicitly linked to conservation objectives
• Crucial to implement long-term monitoring and document outcomes of interventions
Research implicaDons
• Managing human-wildlife conflict is a wicked problem
• Requires a social-ecological systems frame – complexity thinking
• Disentangle opportunities & constraints across scales
• Explore proactive participatory processes of conflict mitigation
• Our quest: conditions for long term coexistence
à context specific long-term approach to restore social-ecological connections,
feedbacks and stewardship
ANTHROPO-
CENTRIC ADAPTIVE
Stewardship
Adaptive co-management
Bio-mimicry?
Participatory learning
BIOCENTRIC
ADAPTIVE
Protected area design
Habitat & food management
Predator-prey management
BIOCENTRIC
CONTROLLING
Guards
Deterrents
Barriers
Aversion training
Lethal control
ANTHROPO-
CENTRIC
CONTROLLING
Education
Incentives & subsidies
Political lobbying
Fines
Anthropocentric Biocentric
Adap/ve
Controlling
Frame Approaches Unintended consequences on Wildlife
Unintended consequences on Humans
Wildlife focused
Problem Animal
Lethal Control
• Injuries, suffering, non-target animals
• Destabilize social stability of the group
• Trophic cascades (specially through
snaring)
• New problema@c animals (seen on
elephants and lions)
• Danger from injured animals
• Social tensions
Virtual fencing • Can be a source of stress for non
targeted species
• Increased short term risks
People focused Direct payments
(insurance and
compensa@on)
• In-migra@on into areas where
compensa@on schemes exist
• Increased compe@@on over resources
• Adverse effects on wildlife
• Intensify poverty traps
• Perverse effect (increase of stocking
rates)
Stewardship
programmes
• Reduc@on in facilita@on and incen@ves
when most needed
Table 1: Examples of unintended negaDve impacts of management. N=24 papers published since 1996 on
conflict management between humans and lion or elephant or primates
Fig 1: ScaUer-plot of different HWC management approaches. The size of the symbol is proporDonal to the
numbers of research arDcles. The X axis represents a ‘target’ gradient. The Y axis represents a ‘problem
percepDon’ gradient
• The way we frame human-wildlife interactions matters a lot
• Need to understand ecological, social, economic and political context
• Must re-think monitoring & adaptation programmes
• Encourage participatory processes: build on community’s existing strengths
• Low-cost, locally appropriate interventions
• Innovatively combine different frames
What we learnt from this
Brent Stapelkamp