Wild animals - biodiversity or pest? Creating local dialogues for dealing with farming-wildlife conflicts in rural Himalayan landscapes

Himalaya is not only a key place for biodiversity and indigenous populations but also an area of poverty and marginality where livelihoods of smallholder farmers are already threatened by a changing climate.

Over the past decades, local communities have invested remarkable labour and resources for community forestry, which have resulted into a recovery of once degraded mountain landscapes.

Such forest recovery however has negative unintended consequences; farmers now face second generation problems with catastrophic impacts of the wildlife encroachment on their farmlands.

Building on ongoing research on changes in rural livelihoods in Nepalese mountains, this research aims to investigate this new form of human-wildlife interactions by exploring dynamics and drivers of the growing wildlife encroachments and its long-term implications for farm-based livelihoods.

We will conduct comprehensive research to deepen the understanding on scale, drivers and consequences of the problem and analyse the past and present wildlife and forest related policies.

This will be combined with participatory action research focusing on testing practical measures and conducting dialogues among local communities, government officials and other stakeholders at different levels.

We intend to contribute to co-produce knowledge and create space for constructive dialogues for policy and practical solutions that help sustain livelihoods and biodiversity conservation in the mountain landscapes.