This blog post highlights a video created by our recently published People and Nature author, Dian Spear, which summarises the research within their paper – Drivers of change in human–wildlife relationships: Southern Africa as an example.

For the full paper – click here

For the plain language summary – click here

Please see the full script of the video below:

Human populations continue to encroach on wildlife. While there is increasing pressure to conserve wildlife, people continue to have different views of how wildlife should be managed.

People and nature put out a call on The People and Nature Blog for integrative synthesis articles on “Human Relationships with Nature (and how they vary)”.

I wanted to write about what drives changes in human – wildlife relationships. Which is an important issue seeing as there is increasing pressure to find ways for people and wildlife to live together.

I built on the “three interwoven dimensions of transformative change” from the IPBES transformative change assessment to develop a conceptual framework of the different drivers of change. The four drivers of change that I write about are changes in wildlife community dynamics, human views, human practices and human structures.

I use examples of changes I’ve seen or know about from Cape Town and Southern Africa more broadly to demonstrate how these changes play out.

Wildlife community dynamics include changes in wildlife population sizes, distribution or occurrence and behaviour.

The first case of changes in wildlife community dynamics leading to changes in relationships between people and wildlife is the case of rabies in seals.

Rabies in seals in Cape Town changed how seals behaved towards humans and resulted in many water and beach users becoming afraid of seals. it also resulted in seal snorkeling tour operators loosing income as seal snorkeling operations were halted.

The second example is predation of white sharks by killer whales. In this example, this new type of predation by killer whales resulted in sharks leaving the oceanic waters of cape town and shark tourism operators loosing income but it also resulted in people engaging with the ocean more. For example there have been more long distance swimmers doing swims across False Bay since the sharks have moved away.

The next driver is changes in human views. Views include ways people think about, interpret, and value wildlife.

The impact of the documentary film My Octopus Teacher, is a good example of a change in human views and resultant change in people’s relationships with a species. My Octopus teacher got people interested in octopuses and kelp forests in Cape Town and lead to more people going snorkeling in the area where the documentary was filmed.

The other example of a change in views leading to changing relationships between people and animals is the case of Cecil the lion. A media frenzy related to the hunting of Cecil the lion lead to protests and policy change. An important element of this cases is the role of story-telling and distant actors in influencing the relationships between people and animals.

The next driver is changes in human practices, which includes behaviours, actions, and everyday routines through which people engage with wildlife.

The first example is the case of rhino poaching leading to green militarization and changing the relationships that rangers have with rhinos as their jobs become increasingly dangerous and stressful.

The second example is the use of faux leopard fur reducing the demand for leopard fur for ceremonial use by members of the Shembe church.

The last driver is changes in structure, which refers to the formal and informal institutions, policies, governance systems, and social norms that mediate human–wildlife interactions.

Firstly, The Botswana hunting ban reduced benefits for communities and private landowners who relied on wildlife.

Secondly, South Africa’s land tenure policy let private landowners use wildlife, incentivising its conservation.

Human-baboon conflict in Cape Town is a case where wildlife-community dynamics, human views, practices and structures all interact. Understanding the diversity, dynamics and drivers of change in human-wildlife relationships is essential for enabling human-wildlife coexistence into the future.