Suchergebnisse

As wolf populations expand across Europe, many countries face challenges in finding ways to address the concerns of some elements among the rural stakeholders who are being asked to share their landscapes with wolves for the first time in several generations. In these recovery landscapes, wolves are associated with a wide range of conflicts that include economic, psychological, perceptional, social, cultural and political dimensions. A recurring demand concerns the desire to introduce the use of carefully regulated lethal control of wolves, through either culling by state employees or hunting conducted by rural hunters. Introducing such measures can be very controversial, and many critics challenge their legality under the international wildlife conservation instruments that have nurtured wolf recovery. We evaluate this issue for the case of wolves in Norway, which are strictly protected under the Bern Convention. Drawing on the latest results of social science research, we present the multiple lines of argumentation that are often used to justify killing wolves and relate these to the criteria for exceptions that exist under the Bern Convention. We conclude that while the Convention provides apparent scope for allowing the killing of wolves as a means to address conflicts, this must be clearly justified and proportional to the conservation status of wolves so as to not endanger their recovery.

Abstract
There is an urgent need to sustainably coexist with wildlife. However, realizing this goal is hampered by scant understanding of the processes that facilitate and maintain coexistence. Here, we synthesize human–wildlife interactions into eight archetypal outcomes, from eradication to sustained co-benefits, which collectively serve as a heuristic for forms of coexistence across a wide range of species and systems worldwide. We utilize resilience theory to elucidate how and why human–wildlife systems shift between these archetypes, yielding insights on research and policy priorities. We underscore the importance of governance structures that actively enhance the resilience of coexistence.

As wolf populations expand across Europe, many countries face challenges in finding ways to address the concerns of some elements among the rural stakeholders who are being asked to share their landscapes with wolves for the first time in several generations. In these recovery landscapes, wolves are associated with a wide range of conflicts that include economic, psychological, perceptional, social, cultural and political dimensions. A recurring demand concerns the desire to introduce the use of carefully regulated lethal control of wolves, through either culling by state employees or hunting conducted by rural hunters. Introducing such measures can be very controversial, and many critics challenge their legality under the international wildlife conservation instruments that have nurtured wolf recovery. We evaluate this issue for the case of wolves in Norway, which are strictly protected under the Bern Convention. Drawing on the latest results of social science research, we present the multiple lines of argumentation that are often used to justify killing wolves and relate these to the criteria for exceptions that exist under the Bern Convention. We conclude that while the Convention provides apparent scope for allowing the killing of wolves as a means to address conflicts, this must be clearly justified and proportional to the conservation status of wolves so as to not endanger their recovery.

A key controversy in conservation is the framing of the relationship between people and nature. The extent to which the realms of nature and human culture are viewed as separate (dualistic view) or integrated is often discussed in the social sciences. To explore how this relationship is represented in the practice of conservation in Europe, we considered examples of cultural landscapes, wildlife (red deer, reindeer, horses), and protected area management. We found little support, for a dualistic worldview, where people and nature are regarded as separate in the traditional practice of conservation in Europe. The borders between nature and culture, wild and domestic, public land and private land, and between protected areas and the wider landscape were blurred and dynamic. The institutionalized (in practice and legislation) view is of an interactive mutualistic system in which humans and nature share the whole landscape. However, more dualistic ideals, such as wilderness and rewilding that are challenging established practices are expanding. In the context of modern day Europe, wilderness conservation and rewilding are not valid for the whole landscape, although it is possible to integrate some areas of low-intervention management into a wider matrix. A precondition for success is to recognize and plan for a plurality of values concerning the most valid approaches to conservation and to plan for this plurality at the landscape scale.

1. Recovering or threatened carnivore populations are often harvested to minimise their impact on human activities, such as livestock farming or game hunting. Increasingly, harvest quota decisions involve a set of scientific, administrative and political institutions operating at national and sub-national levels whose interactions and collective decision-making aim to increase the legitimacy of management and ensure population targets are met. In practice, however, assessments of how quota decisions change between these different actors and what consequences these changes have on population trends are rare. 2. We combine a state-space population modelling approach with an analysis of quota decisions taken at both regional and national levels between 2007 and 2018 to build a set of decision-making models that together predict annual harvest quota values for Eurasian lynx (Lynx lynx) in Norway. 3. We reveal a tendency for administrative decision-makers to compensate for consistent quota increases by political actors, particularly when the lynx population size estimate is above the regional target. Using population forecasts based on the ensemble of decision-making models, we show that such buffering of political biases ensures lynx population size remains close to regional and national targets in the long term. 4. Our results go beyond the usual qualitative assessment of collaborative governance systems for carnivore management, revealing a system of checks and balances that, in the case of lynx in Norway, ensures both multi-stakeholder participation and sustainable harvest quotas. Nevertheless, we highlight important inter-regional differences in decision-making and population forecasts, the socio-ecological drivers of which need to be better understood to prevent future population declines. 5. Synthesis and applications. Our work analyses the sequence of decisions leading to yearly quotas for lynx harvest in Norway, highlighting the collaborative and structural processes that together shape harvest ...

Recovering or threatened carnivore populations are often harvested to minimise their impact on human activities, such as livestock farming or game hunting. Increasingly, harvest quota decisions involve a set of scientific, administrative and political institutions operating at national and sub-national levels whose interactions and collective decision-making aim to increase the legitimacy of management and ensure population targets are met. In practice, however, assessments of how quota decisions change between these different actors and what consequences these changes have on population trends are rare. We combine a state-space population modelling approach with an analysis of quota decisions taken at both regional and national levels between 2007 and 2018 to build a set of decision-making models that together predict annual harvest quota values for Eurasian lynx (Lynx lynx) in Norway. We reveal a tendency for administrative decision-makers to compensate for consistent quota increases by political actors, particularly when the lynx population size estimate is above the regional target. Using population forecasts based on the ensemble of decision-making models, we show that such buffering of political biases ensures lynx population size remains close to regional and national targets in the long term. Our results go beyond the usual qualitative assessment of collaborative governance systems for carnivore management, revealing a system of checks and balances that, in the case of lynx in Norway, ensures both multi-stakeholder participation and sustainable harvest quotas. Nevertheless, we highlight important inter-regional differences in decision-making and population forecasts, the socio-ecological drivers of which need to be better understood to prevent future population declines. Synthesis and applications. Our work analyses the sequence of decisions leading to yearly quotas for lynx harvest in Norway, highlighting the collaborative and structural processes that together shape harvest sustainability. In doing so, we provide a predictive framework to evaluate participatory decision-making processes in wildlife management, paving the way for scientists and decision-makers to collaborate more widely in identifying where decision biases might lie and how institutional arrangements can be optimised to minimise them. We emphasise, however, that this is only possible if wildlife management decisions are documented and transparent.

Harvesting large carnivores can be a management tool for meeting politically set goals for their desired abundance. However, harvesting carnivores creates its own set of conflicts in both society and among conservation professionals, where one consequence is a need to demonstrate that management is sustainable, evidence‐based, and guided by science. Furthermore, because large carnivores often also have high degrees of legal protection, harvest quotas have to be carefully justified and constantly adjusted to avoid damaging their conservation status. We developed a Bayesian state‐space model to support adaptive management of Eurasian lynx harvesting in Scandinavia. The model uses data from the annual monitoring of lynx abundance and results from long‐term field research on lynx biology, which has provided detailed estimates of key demographic parameters. We used the model to predict the probability that the forecasted population size will be below or above the management objectives when subjected to different harvest quotas. The model presented here informs decision makers about the policy risks of alternative harvest levels. Earlier versions of the model have been available for wildlife managers in both Sweden and Norway to guide lynx harvest quotas and the model predictions showed good agreement with observations. We combined monitoring data with data on vital rates and were able to estimate unobserved additional mortality rates, which are most probably due to poaching. In both countries, the past quota setting strategy suggests that there has been a de facto threshold strategy with increasing proportion, which means that there is no harvest below a certain population size, but above this threshold there is an increasing proportion of the population harvested as the population size increases. The annual assessment of the monitoring results, the use of forecasting models, and a threshold harvest approach to quota setting will all reduce the risk of lynx population sizes moving outside the desired goals. The ...