Symposium & Workshop on Human-Wildlife Coexistence in Agricultural Landscapes
The Symposium was hosted on October 16th at Michael Smith Laboratories and featured four keynote speakers and nine IBioS faculty. The speakers explored the concept of coexistence from different perspectives, behavioural models/methods to understand Human-Wildlife Conflict, and how cultures and values influence agricultural landscapes.
Keynote Speakers and Topics:
Kyle Bobiwash – Building the Future of Science and Ecology through Indigenous Values
Teja Tscharntke – Harnessing Biodiversity-Friendly Farming without Yield Loss
Neil Carter – A Burgeoning Science of Coexistence
Allyson Menzies – The Challenge of Coexistence: Indigenous Teachings and the Ongoing Work Across Cultures
The Symposium was followed by a reception at the Biodiversity Research Centre where graduate students and postdocs presented their research on various related topics.
The next day, invited experts joined the Symposium speakers for a workshop at the Biodiversity Research Centre. The attendees addressed questions about what is known about agricultural diversification and its relationship to human-wildlife conflict/coexistence, identified research gaps, and developed next steps for further research.
Check out more ongoing research projects here:
In total, over 100 participants joined the Symposium & workshop, and we would like to thank everyone for their interest and engagement in making it a success!
The Symposium & workshop were both supported by a UBC Grant for Catalyzing Research Clusters (GCRC), titled “Collaborative Coexistence for People and Nature.”