Harmonia

Project title: A novel framework for designing and evaluating human-wildlife coexistence initiatives (Harmonia)

Project code: PN-IV-P1-PCE-2023-1119

Funding body: Executive Agency for Higher Education, Research, Development and Innovation Funding (UEFISCDI)

Budget: 1,200,000 RON

Period: 2025-2027

While research on human-nature interactions is gaining traction, holistic responses remain rare due to the diversity of disciplinary and epistemological backgrounds, as well as the diverse taxonomic and geographic specializations of researchers. Traditional disciplinary approaches have limited capacity to address societal challenges and offer solutions to real-life situations in urban and rural human-dominated landscapes. To overcome these epistemological and methodological limitations, we propose a new approach to coexistence between people and nature in human-dominated landscapes by bridging the science-policy-practice gaps and providing a robust framework that can be applied to design and evaluate coexistence initiatives in various contexts. This outlook will be operationalized through environmental governance theory, which views environmental management as a process governed by both formal and informal institutions. The environmental governance approach will enable scientists, policymakers, and practitioners to gain a systems-level understanding of managing coexistence, highlighting the potential of both shallow (i.e., parameters, feedbacks) and deep (i.e., institutional design, paradigms, values) leverage realms in achieving sustainable human-wildlife interactions.

Aim:

Advance the fundamental understanding of the coexistence of people and wildlife in human-dominated landscapes by bridging the science-policy-practice gaps and providing a robust framework that can be applied to design, evaluate, and update coexistence initiatives at various scales.

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