Large carnivores like wolves, bears, lynxes, and wolverines are making a comeback in Europe, thanks to protective legislation and conservation efforts. But while their numbers are slowly improving, ensuring long-term coexistence with humans in shared landscapes remains a challenge. A recent study by SESCARNIVORE members Cristian-Remus Papp and colleagues highlights a critical issue undermining these efforts: a 'transdisciplinary deficit' in conservation funding and practice.
So, what does this mean?
Conservation projects have traditionally relied on disciplinary or interdisciplinary approaches: biologists work with ecologists, sometimes engaging sociologists or economists. But in many cases, this is not enough. True transdisciplinarity goes further. It means involving not just scientists, but also farmers, hunters, policymakers, and local communities in co-creating solutions. It means recognizing that protecting carnivores is not just a biological challenge, but a social, cultural, and political one.
The authors argue that current EU funding structures, such as the LIFE Programme, still heavily favour technical or narrowly defined conservation work. While these programs acknowledge the importance of community involvement, they rarely require or incentivize deeper, co-designed collaboration. This results in projects that may look good on paper but fail to build the trust and shared ownership needed on the ground.
The paper identifies 12 interconnected drivers of this transdisciplinary deficit, including short project timelines, limited stakeholder engagement, institutional silos, and lack of training in co-creative methods. Even well-funded initiatives may fall short if they fail to include key local voices or adapt to regional cultural contexts.
To address this, the authors propose five recommendations: transform public funding criteria to promote transdisciplinary action; involve academia more deeply in project design; foster community-based stewardship groups; lower co-financing thresholds to widen participation; and create frameworks to better understand stakeholder dynamics.
As Europe faces broader environmental and societal upheavals, from climate change to land-use pressures, rethinking how we design and fund conservation is crucial. Large carnivore recovery can be a beacon of ecological resilience, but only if we build conservation models that are as complex and inclusive as the landscapes we aim to protect.
This is precisely the mission of SESCARNIVORE, a pioneering research initiative that aims to develop a social-ecological niche theory for human-large carnivore coexistence. By integrating ecological data with local knowledge and institutional perspectives, SESCARNIVORE seeks to offer new frameworks for coexistence rooted in real-world complexity. This project aims to exemplify how conservation can move beyond disciplinary boundaries and foster lasting, inclusive solutions on the ground.