Wildlife and People

The coexistence of humans and wildlife in the same habitat is as old as humanity itself and has worked for many decades. It is only in modern times that the idea of deserted protected areas has emerged with the argument that a sustainable coexistence of humans and wild animals is not possible. This often led, particularly in countries in the Global South, to forced relocations or displacement of local populations to make room for national parks and other protected areas. This leads to numerous human rights violations, but also to the "isolation" of still intact small or medium-sized ecosystems within human-used areas and, associated with this, to the genetic impoverishment of wild animal populations. New solutions for species protection and coexistence must be created. That's what we're dealing with.

We believe that there is another way and that coexistence between people and wild animals is certainly possible, even with a growing population, if appropriate conditions are created, the local population is involved in nature conservation measures or they even develop them themselves. We see it as our job to provide advice and support in such processes.

In our work we use wild animals as bio-indicators for the condition of ecosystems and for assessing the implementation of natural protection measures. If possible, our focus here is primarily on big cats and elephants, as they are probably most often involved in conflicts with humans where they occur.

Our programs:

Our funding programs

About us

Wildlife and People Coexistence Network is a project of the Wild Land - Wild Spirit Foundation. This is a non-profit recognized trust foundation based in Wiesbaden and works on the topics of human/wildlife coexistence, nature and species protection, indigenous peoples, implementation of nature conservation with local communities, and promotion of globally sustainable change processes. The focus of our work is on global forest issues and the sustainable coexistence of wild animals and people.

Where have we worked since the foundation was founded in 2013?

Some forest regions of Southeast Asia and Africa.                                                                                                                     Some lynx areas in Central Europe.                                                                                                                                                The region Darmstadt/South-Hessen/Odenwald in Germany

Where could we gain experience beforehand?

Foundation founder Klaus Berger was involved in the protection of boreal forests for many years and traveled and worked in Northern Europe, mostly beyond the Arctic Circle. He was active on the North American west coast for over ten years to protect temperate rainforests. He lived on the South Island of New Zealand for a year and studied the ecology of the rainforest there and came into close contact with the Maori culture.

What do we do?

Advice and promotion of local nature conservation measures and nature conservation projects by indigenous peoples

Coexistence with wild animals is as old as humanity itself and has worked sustainably, although not always without conflict, over many decades. It was only over the last few centuries that a process of alienation of people and wild animals began, particularly in Europe and from here as a result of global colonization, and spread worldwide, which is reflected in today's modern people. Even though many people today are committed to nature and species protection locally and globally, measures are still often promoted that exclude the local population, especially in countries in the global south, instead of integrating them into nature conservation measures. While many people there still share a common habitat with wild animals, which is often dangerous and leads to many deaths of people and animals every year, coexistence with (dangerous) wild animals is no longer an issue here in Central Europe. We have now moved too far away from coexistence with wild animals. If wild animals, such as wolves, return to their former habitat, this quickly leads to conflicts, triggers fears and leaves little room for acceptance and coexistence. While as part of our work in the global south, especially in some regions of Africa and Southeast Asia, we promote and advise local people on nature conservation projects, which almost always aim to coexist with wild animals and not to create deserted protected areas, in Germany it is our aim Work to promote greater acceptance of wild animals through appropriate education and public relations work and thus create a basis for coexistence again.

A first step in promoting the conservation work of local communities is helping to improve the living situation in the villages.

Promoting the global networking of village communities

and local conservation projects

Despite the work of many large, international conservation organizations, we are in the era of the greatest mass extinction since the disappearance of the dinosaurs 65 million years ago, which shows that the work of these organizations alone clearly cannot prevent this. At the same time, it has been found that more than 80% of the remaining biodiversity can be found on the land of indigenous peoples and local village communities, which proves the enormous importance of these communities for global species conservation. However, indigenous communities are still being evicted from their land or forcibly relocated in the name of nature conservation, sometimes in collaboration with nature conservation organizations. The number of these “nature conservation refugees” displaced worldwide is now estimated at around 130 million people. We see these local village communities as a central factor in future global nature and species protection. Often it is small, local projects that they have initiated or it is simply their way of life that leads to the sustainable preservation of their land and biodiversity. The projects are often too small and the number of people in the communities too low to achieve much on their own. That's why networking is so important. Many of these communities are already cooperative across continents and are developing common positions and projects. Others have developed solutions for nature conservation issues that have not yet found their way to other regions, but could be very helpful there. It is therefore particularly important to us in our work to help create networks between these communities and to provide advice and support.

Database coexistence with wildlife

Coexistence with wild animals is becoming increasingly difficult and conflict-ridden in times of increasing alienation and simultaneous population growth, especially in countries in the global south. Organizations, village communities or individuals often develop innovative solutions for individual problems or for specific animal species. While in some regions this can defuse conflicts, in other regions the solution developed is little or no known. This could be remedied by a central database that collects solutions to a wide variety of wild animals and conflict situations and makes them available centrally. Our database is dedicated to this task! To begin with, we will limit ourselves to solutions for conflict reduction with large and small cats (Panthera and Felinae), as they can be found in many ecosystems and are very often involved in conflicts with humans. In regions where they share their habitat with elephants, our focus is also on them. For data protection and copyright reasons, we cannot publish publications from other organizations or authors directly on our website, but we link to them. Many of the solution models presented can certainly also be applied to conflicts with other large mammals. Our database is currently being created and is constantly being expanded. We look forward to receiving interesting information or links to other publications.

The Wildlife and People Coexistence Network and the Rainforest Center Darmstadt are two projects of the

Wild Land - Wild Spirit Foundation.

The two projects work closely together in educational work in Germany.

A core theme is coexistence with wild animals that are currently repopulating their original habitat.