WORK PACKAGE 4. Real-world applicability.

Aim: To assess the ecological and societal scope for maintaining and restoring megafauna in a world going towards 11 billion people and strong climate changes, and develop methods to facilitate human-megafauna coexistence.

Background: There is a strong need to develop mechanisms to favor human-megafauna coexistence. Yet there is little knowledge on the potential for human-dominated landscapes to harbor megafauna, their potential functional effects in such landscapes, and how this will be affected by future climate change. Additionally, there is a strong need to develop mechanisms to favor human-megafauna coexistence.

Methodology: Macroecological modelling and meta-analyses will be used to assess the ecological scope for megafauna diversity worldwide, e.g., to assess current and future habitat availability. Data on current broad-scale distributions and megafauna communities in reserves will be used, in combination with data on past natural distributions and community structure and data on drivers (human pressures, environment). The developed models will be linked to scenarios of future climate and societal conditions to forecast potential dynamics in megafauna. Studies on facilitating human-megafauna coexistence will focus on economic models for human-megafauna coexistence (e.g., integration into CSR strategies) and methods for reducing human-megafauna conflicts (e.g., GIS-based risk mapping, geofencing), and will be done in collaboration with private companies (Wild Business Ltd, Karen Blixen Camp Ltd)