Tarangire: Human-Wildlife Coexistence in a Fragmented Ecosystem

This edited volume summarizes multidisciplinary work on wildlife conservation in the Tarangire Ecosystem of northern Tanzania. By drawing together human-centered, wildlife-centered, and interdisciplinary research, this book contributes to furthering our understanding of the often complex mechanisms underlying human-wildlife interactions in dynamic landscapes. By synthesizing the wealth of knowledge generated by anthropologists, ecologists, conservationists, entrepreneurs, geographers, sociologists, and zoologists over the last decades, this book also highlights practicable and locally adapted solutions for shaping human-wildlife interactions towards coexistence.

Readers will discover the reciprocal and often unexpected direct and indirect dynamics between people and wildlife. While boundaries (e.g. between people and wildlife, between protected and un-protected areas, and between different groups of people) are a common theme throughout the different chapters, this book stresses the commonalities, links, and synergies between seemingly disparate disciplines, opinions, and conservation approaches.

The chapters are divided into clear sections, such as the human dimension, the wildlife dimension  and  human-wildlife interactions,  representing a detailed summary of anthropological, ecological, and interdisciplinary research projects that have been conducted in the Tarangire Ecosystem over the last decades. Beyond, this work contributes to the debate about land-sharing versus land-sparing and provides an in-depth case study for understanding the complexities associated with human-wildlife coexistence in one of the few remaining ecosystems that supports migratory populations of large mammals.

The topic of this book is particularly relevant for students, scholars, and practitioners who are interested in reconciling the needs of human populations with those of the environment in general and large mammal populations in particular.    

Dr. Christian Kiffner is a research associate at the Leibniz Centre for Agricultural Landscape Research and served as faculty at the School for Field Studies in northern Tanzania from 2011 to 2020. Christian received a B.S. degree in Forestry and Forest Ecology, a M.S. in Tropical and International Forestry, and a doctoral degree in Forest Sciences from the University of Göttingen, Germany. Together with undergraduate and graduate students and colleagues, he has conducted field research on the ecology of large carnivores and herbivores, carried out landscape-scale wildlife surveys over multiple years to assess the effectiveness of different conservation approaches in northern Tanzania, and conducted interdisciplinary studies on human-wildlife interactions. Christian has published more than 50 peer-reviewed journal articles and book chapters.

Monica L. Bond, Ph.D., is a principal scientist at the Wild Nature Institute and a research associate at the University ofZurich, with a focus on population ecology, habitat selection, and social behavior of wildlife. Monica is also an advocate for biodiversity conservation: she is a graduate of the first year of Green Corps, the field school for environmental organizing, and has worked as an Endangered Species Act grassroots organizer for the National Wildlife Federation and a staff biologist for the Center for Biological Diversity. Monica received her B.A. degree in Biology from Duke University, her M.S. degree in Wildlife Science from the Department of Fisheries and Wildlife at Oregon State University, and her Ph.D. in Ecology from the Department of Evolutionary Biology and Environmental Studies at the University of Zurich. She has conducted field research on gray-tailed voles, Western Burrowing Owls, Spotted Owls, Black-backed Woodpeckers, arboreal salamanders, northern elephant seals, Hawaiian monk seals, eastern white-bearded wildebeests, and Masai giraffes. She has lived and worked in northern Tanzania since 2012. Monica has published more than 50 peer-reviewed scientific journal articles and book chapters.

Derek E. Lee, Ph.D., is principal scientist at the Wild Nature Institute and associate research professor at Pennsylvania State University. Derek has published more than 50 peer-reviewed scientific journal articles and book chapters on population biology, fire ecology, animal migration, and animal coloration. Derek received a B.A. degree in Cultural Anthropology from University of California Santa Barbara, a M.S. in Natural Resource Management from Humboldt State University, and a Ph.D. in Biological Sciences from Dartmouth College. Since 2012 he has lived and worked full time in Tanzania studying wildlife population biology and behavior.