Human-wildlife conflict is when encounters between humans and wildlife lead to negative results, such as loss of property, livelihoods, and even life. Defensive and retaliatory killing may eventually drive these species to extinction. Not only is human-wildlife conflict one of the greatest threats to some of the world’s most iconic species, but according to this report, A Future for All: The need for human-wildlife coexistence, it is just as much a development and humanitarian issue as it is a conservation concern.
The report explains the complexity of human-wildlife conflict and its underlying drivers; illustrates the direct impacts of human-wildlife conflict at various levels; highlights the need for more attention to this subject; describes ways to address it by unlocking solutions and moving towards coexistence, and provides an outlook on the future of coexistence between people and wildlife. It also calls on the global community to recognize HWC as a worldwide threat not just to wildlife and communities, but to various other sectors, and develop holistic and integrated measures that can be scaled up to minimize and manage HWC and enable coexistence. Achieving this will require collective and collaborative action from the international community, regional and national governments, companies, donor agencies, civil society organizations, people and communities, researchers, and individuals to co-create and implement context-specific solutions at scale.
