Harnessing environmental justice to improve human-wildlife interactions

Human-wildlife interactions are fundamentally driven by both societal and ecological factors, and negative interactions (i.e., "conflicts") are often underpinned by environmental injustices. Integrating local community perspectives and histories with data on ecology and animal behavior can help us to understand how people and wildlife can successfully share landscapes in a world of increasing climate change and human-wildlife overlap. In this talk, we will discuss case studies on human-carnivore interactions and wildlife movement in Nakuru, Kenya and California, USA, and explore how our own intersectional lenses can complement applied science to achieve better, more just conservation outcomes.