Abstract

We made a quantitative analysis of the responses of urban and rural residents in Sweden to arguments supporting and opposing conservation of large carnivores. The most important arguments in favour of conservation were: "I want them [the large carnivores] to exist in Sweden, even if I will never see any of them", "Sweden should share the responsibility of conserving the large carnivores" and "We owe it [conservation of large carnivores] to future generations". We found only small differences between rural and urban residents. For arguments opposing conservation, the difference between rural and urban areas was slightly greater. The most important arguments opposing conservation of large carnivores were: "They may have serious negative impact on livestock farming", "They may have serious negative impact on reindeer husbandry" and "May inflict suffering on injured livestock". We conclude that there seems to be less support for direct use values such as hunting, ecotourism or just experiencing large carnivores, this may imply that the minimum viable population size can be used as a long-term management goal for large carnivore populations, possibly with an exception for bears. We also conclude that a separate conservation or management plan is needed for each species, since the conflicts with human interests vary greatly between the different carnivore species.

Keywords

conservation; large carnivores; values; policy; WTP

Published in

Biodiversity and Conservation
2008, Volume: 17, number: 4, pages: 883-891
Publisher: SPRINGER

SLU Authors

• Frank, Jens

  • Department of Ecology, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences
    

UKÄ Subject classification

Environmental Sciences related to Agriculture and Land-use
Economics and Business
Social Sciences


Publication identifier

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10531-008-9334-3

Permanent link to this page (URI)

https://res.slu.se/id/publ/21479