Tolerance of Wildlife in Protected Area Borderlands

Increases in human-wildlife conflict globally threaten human wellbeing and biodiversity conservation. Sustainable solutions that promote coexistence of people and wildlife are needed, especially in human-dominated landscapes surrounding protected areas. People′s attitudes toward wildlife influence their behaviors, including tolerance for human-wildlife interactions, poaching, and habitat degradation. Better understanding of how to improve people′s attitudes toward wildlife is instrumental to promoting coexistence between people and wildlife in shared spaces. Efforts to promote coexistence often fail because they are based on the inaccurate assumption that people′s attitudes towards wildlife are directly and proportionally related to wildlife-based financial incentives and costs. In reality, people′s attitudes towards wildlife are far more complex. We analyzed surveys (n=237) from Mozambique to examine people′s attitudes toward wildlife in the buffer zones surrounding protected areas using logistic regression and Getis-Ord hot-spot analysis (GI*). Mozambique, which is under-represented in the wildlife-based research literature, is characterized by extreme poverty and rewilding efforts. We found that most respondents were tolerant of wildlife and tolerance was positively correlated with people′s age, gender, and agreement with rules governing wildlife conservation. People′s tolerance for wildlife was also reinforced if they receive benefits from wildlife and are situated further from the park fence. Predation, human harm, and crop loss were not significant predictors of tolerance. We found no evidence of spatial patterns in tolerance for wildlife. Our results suggest that wildlife conservation programs are more likely to be successful if benefits are distributed equitably and community members are actively involved in decision making.