Promoting co-existence between local people, carnivores and biodiversity conservation by conflict and poaching mitigation

由于自然资源有限，加之人类与食肉动物因抢夺牲畜而发生冲突，当地居民对邻近保护区往往表现出负面态度甚至敌意。因此，当地人开始反对保护，并加强偷猎，以报复或获得必要的食物和收入。尽管人类-食肉动物冲突在全球广泛存在，但其科学研究大多是描述性的，只有很少的尝试来预测冲突和评估冲突缓解方法（CMA）的有效性。我们不知道有研究和出版物描述冲突、cma、态度和偷猎之间的因果关系及其随时间和空间的趋势。与此同时，此类研究对于揭示关键驱动因素并找到以社会可接受和有益的方式管理冲突和偷猎的实际解决方案至关重要。我和我的团队计划评估cma（保护项圈、牧羊人和守卫犬）的有效性，并研究野生动物偷猎、cma、当地态度和人类-食肉动物冲突之间的相互关系。该项目将在伊朗北部的赫卡尼亚森林进行。总体目标是开发基于证据、具有成本效益和实用的方法，在不损害当地生计和生物多样性保护的情况下减少人类与食肉动物的冲突和偷猎。该研究将包括以下大尺度（村庄）和小尺度（家庭）的活动：(1)时间序列分析和比较CMAs应用前后的冲突、态度和偷猎；(2)利用结构方程模型分析因果关系；(3)利用占用模型和随机响应模型估算真实盗猎率；(4)通过贝叶斯网络外推的概率因果关系和决策过程。利用这些方法，我们将产生一个空间明确的、因果的和预测的人类-食肉动物冲突模型，从而优化进一步使用所选cma的决策。我们团队目前的工作是基于对全球濒危的波斯豹（Panthera pardus saxicolor = P.p. ciscaucasica）和其他大型猫科动物的全面生态研究。本研究的基本组成部分包括人与动物冲突的建模，动物饮食（包括牲畜的贡献）的实地研究，以及cma的开发和验证。仅在2015年，我们就发表了四篇关于这些主题的科学论文(PLoS One, Basic apple。生态。,动物。Conserv。和杂志。Conserv)。

Local people often express negative attitudes and even hostility towards neighboring protected areas because of having limited access to natural resources and suffering from human-carnivore conflicts over livestock depredation. As a result, local people become opposed to conservation and intensify poaching in retaliation or to obtain essential food and income. Despite human-carnivore conflicts are globally widespread, their scientific research is mostly descriptive and only few attempts have been made to predict conflicts and to assess the effectiveness of conflict mitigation approaches (CMA). We are not aware of studies and publications describing the causal relationships between conflicts, CMAs, attitudes and poaching and their trends over time and space. Meantime, such research is crucially important to reveal the key drivers and to find practical solutions for managing conflicts and poaching in socially acceptable and beneficial ways. I and my team plan to evaluate the effectiveness of CMAs (protective collars, shepherds and guarding dogs) and to study the mutual relationships between wildlife poaching, CMAs, local attitudes and human-carnivore conflicts. The project will be carried out in the Hyrcanian forest in northern Iran. The overarching goal is to develop evidence based, cost-effective and practical methods to reduce human-carnivore conflicts and poaching without compromising local livelihoods and biodiversity conservation. The study will include the following activities at large scales (villages) and fine scales (households): (1) time-series analysis and comparisons of conflicts, attitudes and poaching before and after the application of CMAs; (2) causal relationships by means of structural equation modeling; (3) estimation of true poaching rates by occupancy modeling and randomized response modeling; and (4) probabilistic causal relationships and decision-making processes extrapolated through Bayesian networks. Using these approaches, we will produce a spatially explicit, causal and predictive model of human-carnivore conflicts allowing to optimize decision-making on further use of chosen CMAs. The current work of our team is based on comprehensive ecological research on the globally endangered Persian leopard (Panthera pardus saxicolor = P.p. ciscaucasica) and other big cats. The essential components of this research include the modeling of human-felid conflicts, field research of felid diet (including the contribution of livestock), and development and validation of CMAs. In 2015 alone, we have published four scientific papers on these topics (PLoS One, Basic Appl. Ecol., Anim. Conserv. and Biol. Conserv.).