Building Peace to Save Nature: Multi-disciplinary Approaches to Managing Conflicts in Conservation

Citation

Hodgson ID, Cusack J, Jones I, Minderman J, Nilsson L, Pozo RA, Rakotonarivo OS & Bunnefeld N (2021) Building Peace to Save Nature: Multi-disciplinary Approaches to Managing Conflicts in Conservation. In: Underkoffler SC & Adams HR (eds.) Wildlife Biodiversity Conservation: Multidisciplinary and Forensic Approaches. Cham, Switzerland: Springer International Publishing, pp. 3-22. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-64682-0_1

Abstract
Conservation conflicts are highly complex and challenging issues to understand and address. Such problems involve ecological and economic arguments that are centred around conservation, such as disputes over land rights and access, or the management of wildlife. However, conflicts often have roots that go beyond conservation, concerning social, cultural, historical and political matters. These dimensions are typically latent, requiring significant expertise and resources to disentangle and overcome. The management of conservation conflicts should therefore be carefully considered and enacted in a way that reflects the multi-dimensional nature of such phenomena. In this chapter, we provide an overview of several disciplines and perspectives that view conflict through different lenses and offer a multitude of methodologies and tools that can be used to advance our knowledge and improve our approaches to researching and tackling them. Using illustrative examples, we include insights from the social and political sciences, the natural sciences, armed conflicts and peace studies. Current research and management efforts tend to focus on superficial aspects of conflicts, such as tangible or measurable wildlife impacts or clashes of interest, and overlook deeper-rooted issues. In this chapter, we hope to demonstrate that taking a multi-disciplinary perspective can contribute to a more holistic approach, beneficial to both conflict management and broader challenges in conservation.

Keywords
Conservation conflicts; Conflict management; Multi-disciplinary; Decision-making; Human dimensions

People

Professor Nils Bunnefeld

Professor, Biological and Environmental Sciences

Dr Isla Hodgson

Research Fellow, Biological and Environmental Sciences

Dr Isabel Jones

Senior Research Fellow, Biological and Environmental Sciences