Press Release: Untangling Europe’s complex pastoralism-wildlife policies
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Across Europe, policies meant to support pastoralists and protect wildlife have developed in a fragmented way, leading to contradictions, inefficiencies, and unresolved conflicts.
The recovery of large herbivores and carnivores, such as wolves, is a remarkable conservation success, thanks to protective conservation laws. However, their comeback has brought challenges for pastoralists and rural communities, who face increased costs due to wildlife recovery, in addition to existing pressures and inconsistent regulations that often conflict across sectors and borders.
To address this, researchers from Umeå University, supported by adelphi, are mapping this complex policy landscape across 12 European countries as part of the CoCo project.
Through surveys, interviews, and workshops with pastoralists, hunters, landowners, and environmental groups, the CoCo project is gathering grassroots insights to understand how policies work in practice. These findings will be used to create toolkits, policy briefs, and scientific publications to guide better policymaking and promote coexistence between pastoralism and wildlife.