Human Wildlife Coexistence

The Africa Range-Wide Cheetah Conservation Initiative aims to foster coexistence between communities and cheetahs including via human-wildlife conflict (HWC) mitigation and the development and implementation of effective, sustainable wildlife-based livelihood approaches in priority areas within the Cheetah Landscapes.

Local communities who may face ongoing problems arising from living alongside wildlife within the Cheetah Landscapes may also represent cheetahs’ first line of defence. These communities usually live outside protected areas, often struggling to sustain their livelihoods, where a large proportion of the continent’s cheetah population also persists and may also struggle to survive within an increasingly human-dominated landscape.

The long-term survival of wide-ranging species such cheetah and African wild dogs therefore relies to a large extent on the goodwill of these communities and their tolerance for living alongside carnivores which may also impose significant costs on them due to livestock depredation. The need for local engagement in finding acceptable solutions to living alongside cheetahs is therefore critical to conservation success. Considering communities as equal partners alongside government and non-government stakeholders, the CCI aims to increase community incentives/benefits for wildlife stewardship and decrease the costs of living alongside large carnivores, to ensure that cheetah conservation goes hand-in-hand with the well-being and sustainable development of vulnerable local communities. Practical and viable options that, for example, support alternative livelihoods and HWC mitigation, are identified through a participatory process and then trialled and, if successful, scaled up.

 

The Human-Carnivore Conflict Toolkit for Tanzania was developed with kind permission from the Wildlife Conservation Network’s Lion Conflict Toolkit. The lion kit was adapted and supplemented to find wider relevance for communities and NGOs living and working alongside any of the large carnivores. This adaptation was done by CCI in collaboration with government and NGO partners in Tanzania within the Conflict Unsustainable Use and Trade (CUT) project in 2015. CCI has used the toolkit as a platform for discussion with communities in Ngorongoro in Tanzania, and adaptations are being made for local application across the Tanzania-Kenya boundary.

External links and resources on Human Wildlife Conflict

IUCN 2021 Conflict & Conservation

Nature in a Globalised World Report No.1. Gland, Switzerland

DOWNLOAD ENGLISH

IUCN 2021 Conflict & Conservation

Nature in a Globalised World Report No.1. Gland, Switzerland

DOWNLOAD FRENCH

Luc Hoffmann Institute 2020

The state of knowledge and practice on human wildlife conflicts

DOWNLOAD

Nguinguiri et al 2017

Managing Human wildlife conflicts in Central and Southern Africa Unasylva

DOWNLOAD

USAID 2016

Human carnivore conflict toolkit and best practices East Africa

DOWNLOAD

2015 Human Lion conflict toolkit

DOWNLOAD

Cheetah Conservation Botswana

The predator safe livestock management booklet

DOWNLOAD

WWF 2005

Human wildlife conflict manual

DOWNLOAD
Scroll to Top