A day at work - EU research-project CoCo

Can you tell us about the EU research-project that you are working on? 

Co-creating coexistence: Advancing policies, practices, and stakeholder engagement for integrating wildlife and livestock into sustainable multi-functional landscapes in Europe (CoCo) is a EU Horizon Europe funded project that brings together scientists, policymakers, pastoralists, and other stakeholders from 12 European countries (Sweden, Norway, Latvia, Poland, Germany, Slovakia, Slovenia, Romania, France, Spain, Italy, and Greece) to find ways to reduce conflicts between pastoralism and wildlife management. This is important because the return of large carnivores like wolves and bears and other growing wildlife populations such as deer and wild boar in Europe has rekindled conflicts around wildlife damages, especially attacks on livestock and safety concerns. This is challenging particularly for rural communities and has sparked debates on our relationship with nature. CoCo aims to co-create knowledge and solutions that support sustainable landscapes where pastoralism and wildlife can thrive together.  Over the next 3 years, we will be conducting research, engaging with communities, and shaping policy recommendations to help achieve this goal.

Reindeer on the mountain

ImageJohn Linnell

What part of research will be done by you for the department of political science? 

The part of the project that I am leading together with Prof. Camilla Sandström looks at the policy landscape related to pastoralism-wildlife interactions across Europe. Complex socio-ecological challenges such as pastoralism-wildlife interactions generally need a diversity of policies from multiple policy sectors to work together and target a diverse set of stakeholders. This can result in very complex mixes of multiple policies. In addition, as these policies have evolved over a long period of time with adding and altering bits and pieces to deal with changing circumstances, the policy landscape can become messy, and the overview can become lost as to whether the policies actually work well together or work against each other. We will conduct a policy analysis to map and untangle the current policy landscape across Europe and gain insights into if and how the policies are working together. Our goal with this analysis is to identify opportunities for cross-country learning to mitigate conflicts and to make policy-relevant recommendations at the end of the project both at the EU level, but also for the individual countries. This work is important not just for science but also for society because it can help identify where the policies can be improved to increase their potential to reduce human-wildlife conflicts.

Sheep and horses in electric fenced pasture

ImageT.Rooke

Can you the describe the methodology of this kind of research? 

As the policy documents are written in the native languages of the respective European countries and we find it important that the analysis is done by people who are familiar with the socio-political, economic, and environmental context of the countries that we analyse, we have asked our project partners in each of the countries to help us collect data for their countries. First, we analyse policy documents, technical reports, and previous scientific literature. To make sure that we collect and analyse the material in the same way and focus on the same aspects across the countries, we work with detailed templates. These templates guide the researchers on what information to collect and how to document it. We have five different templates, each focusing on a different part of the policy landscape, like policy processes or policy instruments. We start off the work with each template with a workshop. In these workshops, we explain the theory on which the templates are build, show examples of how to fill them out, start to fill out the templates together, and answer any remaining questions. This helps all researchers involved to have a shared understanding of the analysis process and the information that we need to gather. In later workshops, we also compare and discuss our initial findings. Beyond analysing the documents, we will also gather insights from surveys with pastoralists, land-owners, hunters, and environmentalists that will be done in other parts of the CoCo project to understand their views on the policies. Finally, we will combine all the results and make recommendations for improving the policies. The results will be shared in a report for the EU and in scientific articles.

Bear in the woods

ImageJan Ove Gjershaug Bjørn

In what stage of the process is the project? 

The project began in November 2024, and we have just started collecting data. For the policy analysis, we have had two online workshops with our project partners. In these workshops, we started mapping out the policy processes in the different EU countries. We looked at which actors and administrative levels are involved in policy making and implementation, what their different roles are, whether these processes are centralised or decentralised, if and how stakeholders are included, and how well these processes are coordinated and integrated.  

What is the aim of the project and why is that important for the EU? 

In the CoCo project overall, we work to strengthen the interaction between pastoralism and wildlife management in Europe. We want to turn entrenched conflicts into opportunities and create a future where both pastoralism and wildlife can thrive together in diverse, sustainable ecosystems. Through a combination of science, traditional practices, and local knowledge, we aim to deliver actionable insights and tools to improve the livelihoods of pastoralists, conserve biodiversity, and enhance the multifunctionality of European landscapes. The goal is to promote policies and practices that both benefit pastoralism and protect biodiversity in a long-term sustainable way.

Wolf

Image[Fotograf saknas]

This is important for the EU because the conflicts around large carnivores have become very intense in recent years. All European institutions (European Parliament, European Commission, European Council, and Court of Justice of the EU), and many national and regional governments are currently involved in very heated technical, political, and legal discussions about the future of pastoralism and wildlife managed. An example of this is the recent decision of the Bern Convention to downgrade the protection status of wolves. There exists an extensive body of diverse forms of knowledge on pastoralism-wildlife interaction, but it is fragmented and often disputed and there is a low degree of trust and coordination between agricultural and environmental sectors. We believe that the CoCo project can contribute to transformative change away from this current situation of entrenched and polarised conflicts by building robust knowledge through collaborative work, combined with the improved mutual understanding and communication between stakeholders. This will help pastoralists and the wider European pastoral community look forward to a future that secures and values their presence while ensuring that Europe’s wildlife can continue to recover.