Environmentalities of coexistence with wolves in the Cantabrian mountains of Spain

• Published in: Conservation and Society
• Main Authors: Marino, Agnese, Blanco, Juan Carlos, López Bao, José Vicente, Cortés Vázquez, José Antonio, Planella Bosch, Anna, Durant, Sarah
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: Wolters Kluwer - Medknow Publications 2022
• Subjects: Large carnivores; Wolves; Canis lupus; Environmentality; Coexistence; Human-wildlife conflict
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/2183/32222

A. Marino was supported by a NERC doctoral scholarship and the Royal Geographic Society Frederick Soddy Award. The research contributes to the “María de Maeztu” Programme for Units of Excellence of the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation (CEX2019-000940-M). J.V. López-Bao was supported by the Spanish Ministry of Economy, Industry and Competitiveness (RYC-2015-18932; CGL2017-87528-R AEI/FEDER EU) and by a GRUPIN research grant IDI/2021/000075 from the Regional Government of Asturias. The other authors were not funded by any agency for their work. [Abstract]: Coexistence between humans and large carnivores is mediated by diverse values and interactions. We focus on four sites in the Cantabrian Mountains of Spain with a history of continuous wolf presence to examine how perceptions of coexistence vary across contexts. We conducted semi-structured and informal interviews with livestock farmers (n = 271), hunters (n = 157), and local community members (n = 60) to collect quantitative and qualitative data on people's experiences of coexistence with wolves. We use an environmentality framework to analyse approaches to wolf governance across sites and explore how local resource users perceive, negotiate, and respond to different governance approaches. Our analysis is firstly structured around coexistence subjectivities associated with pastoralist and hunter cultures. These encompass ambivalent and multi-layered relations founded on notions of reciprocity with nature and on resource users' roles as producers and land stewards. Secondly, we explore encounters between local cultures, interests, and environmental regulations in the context of different site-based environmentalities. The framework we adopt enables coexistence to be conceived as a space of competing knowledges and practices, arising from everyday embodied interactions with wolves and the cultural politics through which local communities negotiate different ways of governing, knowing, and relating to nature. Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación; ...