WILDLABS
World Wide Fund for Nature/ World Wildlife Fund (WWF)
Submission deadline: Sunday, 15 September 2024
Big Cats (i.e. species of Acinonyx, Puma, Neofelis, Panthera) are global conservation icons that perform critical ecosystem services. They are among the most recognizable species on the planet and highly threatened. As the largest living terrestrial carnivores on the planet, these species inspire both awe and fear in humans, and can kill or injure people. Large cats also compete with people for space and food through killing livestock. As such, human-wildlife conflict (HWC) has significant impact on cat conservation, and human tolerance for living with big cats is critical to the success of big cat conservation. HWC drives declines in all big cat species and has contributed to the imperiled status of many species. Increasingly, global conservation commitments aim to support big cat conservation and restore populations across their historic rangers. Such efforts are aligned with global conservation goals such as expanding protected area coverage (e.g., the 30x30 initiative). Understanding the drivers and the impacts of conflict from the perspective of both people and wildlife is essential if we are to effectively conserve the world big cats.
This Special Issue identifies and frames how human-big cat coexistence can be achieved through managing conflict. The special issue focuses on looking at conflict, its drivers, and hidden costs. The issue will consist of a combination of policy papers, perspectives, and field-based examples framed through the lens of what is required to recover big cat species across their historic ranges.
Topics for this call for papers include but are not restricted to:
- Global approaches to managing HWC specific fto big cats, including the IUCN Guidelines and other developing approaches such as Conflict to Coexistence (C2C)
- Field-based examples of managing HWC in big cats
- Field examples of impact of big cat HWC on people (direct and indirect) and assets, and on big cat conservation
- Understanding drivers of conflict and how they interconnect
- Analysis of local, regional or national policies and how they impact HWC in big cats and big cat conservation
Guest Editors:
Thomas Gray
WWF
Cambodia
Sugoto Roy
KORA Foundation
Switzerland
Smriti Dahal
WWF
Cambodia
Keywords: Conflict; Coexistence; Cat; Panthera; Tiger; Lion; Jaguar
Submission Guidelines/Instructions
Please refer to the Author Guidelines to prepare your manuscript. When submitting your manuscript, please answer the question: "Is this submission for a special issue?" by selecting the special issue title from the drop-down list.