On 7 October 2020, Dr Stefano Kaburu from the University of Wolverhampton presented a webinar in our CRESIDA seminar series titled ‘Investigation of the drivers and outcome of human-macaque interactions: a coupled natural and human systems approach’.
Abstract
The rapid expansion of human populations has resulted in dramatic changes of the global and local ecosystems, transforming wildlife habitats and increasingly placing wildlife in proximity of humans, which, in turn, generates increasing conflict between humans and wildlife. Understanding what drives interactions between humans and wildlife and how these interactions can potentially affect human and wildlife behaviours is a crucial step towards finding solutions to mitigate this conflict. In this context, the Coupled Natural-Human System (CNHS) provides an excellent framework to study human-wildlife interactions as it views the human and natural systems as a coupled system that reciprocally and dynamically influence one another. Our research group uses the CNHS framework to study the complex dynamic interactions between humans and three macaque species across three different sites in India and Malaysia. This talk will discuss some of our early findings into the characteristics of the macaque and human systems driving the interactions, the impact of these interactions on macaque behaviour, and how these findings can help us better design mitigation strategies to tackle issues related to human-macaque conflict.
