Identifying sustainable coexistence potential by integrating willingness-to-coexist with habitat suitability assessments. (March 2023)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Vogel, Susanne Marieke; Vasudev, Divya; Ogutu, Joseph O.; Taek, Purity; Berti, Emilio; Goswami, Varun R.; Kaelo, Michael; Buitenwerf, Robert; Munk, Michael; Li, Wang; Wall, Jake; Chala, Desalegn; Amoke, Irene; Odingo, Alice; Svenning, Jens-Christian
• Is Part Of: Biological conservation. Volume 279(2023)
• Publication Date: 2023-03
• Subjects: Human-wildlife conflict -- Megafauna -- Community-based conservation -- Support -- Attitude -- Tolerance; MMWCA Maasai Mara Wildlife Conservancies Association -- MMNR Maasai Mara National Reserve -- WAC Wildlife Acceptance Capacity -- SDM Species Distribution Model -- INLA Integrated Nested Laplace Approximation -- ZANB Zero-Altered Negative Binomial hurdle model -- BYM Besag-York-Mollié -- CAR Conditional Autoregressive -- NDVI Normalized Difference Vegetation Index -- CrI Credible Intervals -- SI Supplementary Information; Conservation of natural resources -- Periodicals; Nature conservation -- Periodicals; Ecology -- Periodicals; Environment -- Periodicals; Environmental Pollution -- Periodicals; Electronic journals; 333.9516
• DOI: 10.1016/j.biocon.2023.109935
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 0006-3207

Abstract

Abstract: Persistence of species in the Anthropocene depends on human willingness-to-coexist with them, but this is rarely incorporated into habitat suitability or conservation priority assessments. We propose a framework of sustainable coexistence potential that integrates human willingness-to-coexist with habitat suitability assessments. We demonstrate its applicability for elephants and rhinos in the socio-ecological system of Maasai Mara, Kenya, by integrating spatial distributions of peoples' willingness-to-coexist based on Bayesian hierarchical models using 556 household interviews, with socio-ecological habitat suitability mapping validated with long-term elephant observations from aerial surveys. Willingness-to-coexist was higher if people had little personal experience with a species, and strongly reduced by experiencing a species as a threat to humans. The sustainable coexistence potential framework highlights areas of low socio-ecological suitability, and areas that require more effort to increase positive stakeholder engagement to achieve long-term persistence of large herbivores in human-dominated landscapes.