Human-carnivore conflicts are complex and are influenced by: the spatial distribution of the conflict species; the organisation and intensity of management measures such as zoning; historical experience with wildlife; land use patterns; and local cultural traditions. We have used a geographically stratified sampling of social values and attitudes to provide a novel perspective to the human – wildlife conflict. We have focused on acceptance by and disagreements between residents (measured as Potential Conflict Index; PCI) towards illegal hunting of four species of large carnivores (bear, lynx, wolf, wolverine). The study is based on surveys of residents in every municipality in Sweden and Norway who were asked their opinion on illegal hunting. Our results show how certain social values are associated with acceptance of poaching, and how these values differ geographically independent of carnivore abundance. Our approach differs from traditional survey designs, which are often biased towards urban areas. Although these traditional designs intend to be representative of a region (i.e. a random sample from a country), they tend to receive relatively few respondents from rural areas that experience the majority of conflict with carnivores. Acceptance of poaching differed significantly between Norway (12.7–15.7% of respondents) and Sweden (3.3–4.1% of respondents). We found the highest acceptance of illegal hunting in rural areas with free-ranging sheep and strong hunting traditions. Disagreements between residents (as measured by PCI) were highest in areas with intermediate population density. There was no correlation between carnivore density and either acceptance of illegal hunting or PCI. A strong positive correlation between acceptance of illegal hunting and PCI showed that areas with high acceptance of illegal hunting are areas with high potential conflict between people. Our results show that spatially-stratified surveys are required to reveal the large scale patterns in social dynamics of human-wildlife conflicts.

Species and ecosystems are under constant pressure from a rapidly-growing human population. Human tolerance of carnivores, including the willingness to live in areas with these predators, is key to the success of large carnivore conservation. In the Scandinavian Peninsula, large carnivore populations conflict with human activity; low tolerance among local people may lead to illegal hunting. A survey of 2521 Scandinavian respondents to measure environmental value orientation, using the new environmental paradigm (NEP) scale and attitudes toward large carnivores, revealed attitudes towards the presence of carnivores were not related to carnivore abundance. Nor was there a significant relationship between environmental value orientation and personal experiences with loss of domestic sheep or hunting dogs. Environmental values were mainly explained by country differences; Swedes had a more ecocentric value orientation than Norwegians. Significantly more Norwegians (45 %) than Swedes (19 %) responded that there were too many carnivores in their country. Historic differences in how government is perceived between Norway and Sweden may result in different attitudes towards illegal hunting and towards carnivores. Specifically, Norwegians may hold a more anthropocentric view, based on a suspicion of central authorities, whereas Swedes may hold a more ecocentric view.

This systematic review of peer reviewed articles on attitudes towards gray wolves (Canis lupus), shows that attitudes are mainly measured either by mean values of attitudes or by proportional differences in attitudes. This may impact on how attitudes are perceived and interpreted across studies and areas. However, independent of method used, we found that people living in areas where wolves always have existed, are more negative towards wolves compared to people living in areas where there are no wolves, or where wolves have recovered after years of absence. People who express fear, or being directly affected by having wolves, such as farmers and hunters, report more negative attitudes compared to other groups of respondents. For wolf conservation we recommend politicians and management authorities to prepare local societies of the different consequences of living in wolf areas. We recommend using dialogues and conflict management methods to minimize the level of conflicts.

There are two main international strategies concerning how to ensure a sustainable environment: one is to develop a globally bio-based economy, or bioeconomy, to meet the increased demand of goods and products to maintain our well-being and to reduce climate change. On the other hand, there is an aim to decrease the negative impacts on nature and natural habitats to conserve and maintain ecosystems and control the loss of biodiversity. There is a trade-off between these two strategies; as we increase the commitment to the bioeconomy by intensifying biomass production, we will simultaneously challenge biodiversity through the increased pressure on, and the utilization of, biological raw materials. Here, we first review and discuss the challenges and opportunities in terrestrial and marine ecosystems for the production of biomass for the bioeconomy. We focus on the trade-offs between economic sustainability on one hand, and environmental sustainability and resilience on the other hand. We conclude with a discussion of the various bioeconomy strategies. Finally, we present a conceptual model on how to sustainably develop the bioeconomies (by introducing the concept of optimizing the economic gain/ecological pain ratio) to be able to manage the biodiversity in a sustainable way.

Human–wildlife interactions occur when humans and wildlife overlap in the same landscapes. Due to the growing human population, the number of interactions will continue to increase, and in some cases, develop further into social conflicts. Conflicts may occur between people disagreeing about wildlife conservation or arguing over which wildlife management measures should be taken. Social conflicts between humans are based on different attitudes, values and land‐use aspirations. The success of solving these social conflicts strongly depends on building trust between the public, stakeholders, authorities and researchers, as trust is fundamental to all communication and dialogue. Here we have examined how trust in large carnivore research differs within a geographically stratified sample of the Norwegian population. The comprehensive survey, including 2,110 respondents, allows us to explore how people perceive factual statements about large carnivores depending on the source of these statements. Specifically, the respondents were given multiple statements and asked to judge them in terms of meaning and authenticity depending on whether the statements were made by a politician, the Norwegian farmers' association, the Norwegian Fish and Game association or a large carnivore researcher. Based on the variations in perceptions, we inferred that trust in large carnivore researchers and their research results varied with people's attitudes, values and direct experience of large carnivores. In general, respondents perceived 60% of the statements to be genuine when given no information of who had made them. Although this increased to 75% when informed that the statements were made by a large carnivore researcher, there was still a 25% probability that the statement was perceived as manipulative or political. Age, environmental values and negative experiences of carnivores increased the probability of perceiving research statements as manipulative or political. People living in areas with high proportions of hunters showed particularly polarized views, either more strongly perceiving the statements as political, or in contrast as research. This study provides a novel perspective in understanding the role trust plays in social conflicts related to human–wildlife interactions. A free Plain Language Summary can be found within the Supporting Information of this article.

Mismatching in the spatial scales of social structures and ecological processes complicates the management of natural resources. Here we suggest the use of variance components to determine at which spatial scale variation in feelings, environmental attitudes and value orientation is largest and hence most exposed to conflicts. We estimated the variance components of the feeling of fear for large carnivores, environmental attitudes towards large carnivores and environmental value orientation at 3 scales (municipality, county and country) in Norway and Sweden. The feeling of fear for specific carnivores had the highest variance components at the municipality level, we found no specific scale that best explained the variance in attitudes towards carnivores in general, while attitudes based on environmental value orientation showed the highest variance components at the country level. To match the social-ecological systems, we conclude that management units have to be designed as the best possible trade-off between the social and ecological scales; i.e. largest possible to maintain ecological sustainability, but small enough to maintain a low degree of social conflicts.