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

由于获得自然资源的机会有限，并因掠夺牲畜而遭受人与食肉动物的冲突，当地人经常对邻近的保护区表示负面态度，甚至敌视。结果，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。尽管人与食肉动物的冲突在全球范围内普遍存在，但它们的科学研究大多是描述性的，很少有人尝试预测冲突和评估冲突缓解方法(CMA)的有效性。我们不知道有什么研究和出版物描述了冲突、CMA、态度和偷猎之间的因果关系，以及它们在时间和空间上的趋势。与此同时，这种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、牧羊人和看门狗)的有效性，并研究野生动物偷猎、CMA、当地态度和人与食肉动物冲突之间的相互关系。该项目将在伊朗北部的海尔卡尼安森林进行。总体目标是开发以证据为基础、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与食肉动物之间的冲突和偷猎。这项研究将包括以下大尺度(村庄)和细尺度(家庭)的活动：(1)使用CMA前后的冲突、态度和偷猎的时间序列分析和比较；(2)通过结构方程建模的因果关系；(3)通过占用建模和随机响应建模估计真实的偷猎率；以及(4)通过贝叶斯网络外推的概率因果关系和决策过程。使用这些方法，我们将产生一个空间上明确的、因果的和预测的人类与食肉动物冲突的模型，允许优化关于进一步使用选定的CMA的决策。我们团队目前的工作是基于对全球濒危波斯豹(Panthera pardus saxicolor=p.P.)的全面生态研究。西高加索)和其他大型猫科动物。这项研究的基本组成部分包括人-猫科动物冲突的建模、猫科动物饮食的实地研究(包括家畜的贡献)以及CMAS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(《公共科学图书馆·第一版》，《基础应用》。埃科尔，阿尼姆。节约。还有比奥尔。保存。)。

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.).