The Ethical Conservation Alliance’s (ECA) Conflict Management Toolkit is a practical guide designed to help conservation practitioners, community partners, and policymakers understand and manage conservation conflicts — situations where wildlife negatively impacts human lives, livelihoods, or safety, and where differing human values and interests shape how these interactions are perceived and addressed.
Drawing on decades of field experience, ecological and social research, and Indigenous governance principles, the toolkit tries to integrate ecological science, social understanding, and ethical practice into a single framework for fostering coexistence. It emphasizes fairness, empathy, respect, and reciprocity as core to effective conservation. It provides a framework that practitioners can use while designing their conflict management programs.
The toolkit is organized into two main parts:
Part 1: Understanding Conflicts — exploring ecological, behavioural, and social dimensions of conservation conflicts (available from the link below).
Part 2: Managing Conflicts — outlining guiding principles, frameworks, and practical measures for conflict mitigation, coexistence, and participatory monitoring (coming soon).
Part 1 includes appendices featuring interactive quizzes and a glossary of key ethical frameworks and standards.
This toolkit is intended for conservation practitioners, government wildlife managers, community facilitators, and educators working to promote coexistence between people and wildlife.
This online video-based toolkit should also be used together with the accompanying written document. The videos and written document complement each other. Studying both together will ensure a deeper and more comprehensive understanding of conflict management and coexistence.