Negotiating Coexistence in Wildlife Conservation



Overview

Conflicts in wildlife conservation, including increasingly polarized human-wildlife conflicts, have become one of the most urgent and high-profile concerns in biodiversity conservation globally. Such conflicts, whether they are about wildlife, protected areas, or wider biodiversity conservation issues,  are complex, dynamic situations shaped by ecological, behavioural, social, political, economic and cultural factors. At the heart of these, as with many biodiversity conservation challenges, lie unresolved tensions and disputes emerging out of incompatible needs and interests of different groups of people. Some of these issues seem to be relatively negotiable, while are deep-rooted, entrenched or highly polarised that seem impossible to resolve.


How can we make sense of these complexities and untangle the causes, triggers, stages, and cycles in conflicts? What are the key negotiation and conflict resolution skills that can help conservation professionals devise ways forward and how can they apply these to conflicts over biodiversity? Managing conflicts over wildlife and biodiversity and maintaining a sustainable level of coexistence requires a sound understanding of these conflict dynamics, an awareness of the nature of conflicts and strategies for managing these, and an ability to transfer these skills and insights into real world situations and practice.

Course Aims

This course focuses on the social dimensions of conflicts in biodiversity, i.e. on working with and resolving conflicts between people. It will equip participants with the fundamentals of negotiation skills and insights into conflict resolution methods for a range of situations, from minor disputes to deeply polarised and intractable conflicts.

In this course participants will learn the following:

  • how to deconstruct and analyse complex conflict situations
  • understand the actions and behaviours of actors involved
  • become aware of patterns of escalation and how to prevent these. 

Learning Outcomes

By the end of the course, the participants will be able to:

  1. Understand underlying causes of a given conflict (including cultural, socio-economic, historical and political contexts) and know how to identify hidden and underlying drivers
  2. Identify the level of conflict carry out a situation analysis, knowing the symptoms as well appropriate response strategies and approaches
  3. Be able to design and conduct a stakeholder mapping to identify the positions, interests and relationships of the parties involved
  4. Use key skills in negotiation and mediation to manage, diffuse and work with situations of conflict, and know when to use third party impartial support
  5. Understand how construct dialogue processes, when to use peacebuilding, transformation or track-II diplomacy approaches, how these work and how to develop them
  6. Know how to engage with communities effectively to build rapport, and create co-ownership and sustainable collaborations
  7. Understand how people’s attitudes, behaviour, beliefs, and values are shaped, and be familiar with essentials of social research methods for project evaluation
  8. Know the essentials of human social behaviour change: how to influence community norms, behaviours and positive change through behaviour change strategies
  9. Be aware of ethical considerations and possible unintended side-effects of different approaches to working with HWCs and communities
  10. Know how to develop a conflict resolution theory of change to create high-quality, carefully articulated project concepts and proposals for financial support, monitoring, and sustainable outcomes.

Venue details

The course will be held at the in the H B Allen Centre, the graduate centre of Keble College.

The H B Allen Centre is located within easy walking distance of the center of Oxford, and is only 300 metres north of the original college.

Certification

On successful completion of the course, all participants will receive a University of Oxford Certificate of Attendance.

The attendance certificate will state the course title and location, the course dates, and hours of tuition involved. It will be signed by the principal tutor.

Please note that this course does not offer any form of official credit to participants.

Fees

Description Costs
Non-residential: All tuition, buffet lunch & tea and coffee £1300.00
Residential: B&B accomm, all tuition, buffet lunch, tea & coffee £1950.00

Funding

The Department is, unfortunately, unable to offer any scholarships or reduction in fees for the Negotiating Conflict and Coexistence in Wildlife Conservation course at present. 

Payment

You have two fee options to choose from depending on what suits you best:

Non-Residential

The fees for a non-residential place of £1300.00 for the course include the following:

  • All tuition
  • Buffet lunch at the H B Allen Centre
  • Welcome drinks reception afternoon of Monday 2 September
  • Tea and coffee during the morning and afternoon break

Residential

The fees for a residential place of £1950.00 for the course include the following:

  • All tuition
  • Accommodation in a single en-suite room with private shower and toilet for the nights of Sunday 1 September to Thursday 5 September;
  • Breakfast in Keble College dining hall from Monday 2 September to Friday 6 September;
  • Buffet lunch at the H B Allen Centre
  • Welcome drinks reception afternoon of Monday 2 September
  • Tea and coffee during the morning and afternoon break

Cancellations and refunds

You will enter into your contract with the University when you pay the full amount of the course fees. You have the right to cancel your contract at any time within 14 days of its commencement (ie when you pay your fees). You will receive a full refund of any payments you have made.

If you cancel your place on a course at any time after expiry of the 14-day period you will not be entitled to a refund, except in exceptional circumstances, at the discretion of the University. If a refund is made an administration fee may be charged.

Participants who wish to cancel must inform the Programme Administrator by emailing summercourses@conted.ox.ac.uk.

Please be aware that all payments (and refunds) are subject to exchange rates at the time of processing. You can find the full terms and conditions here.

Important information regarding visa requirements

You can check if you need a visa for this course using this link on the GOV.UK website. If you require a visa to study abroad, then we strongly recommend that you apply for this course as early as possible in order to allow yourself sufficient time to make a successful visa application.

This may include a letter from the course administrator confirming your place on the course; this confirmation letter will not be issued until all course fees have been paid in full. In the case of a visa application being unsuccessful the Department will not offer a refund.

Please note that, for legal reasons, the Programme Administrator is not permitted to provide any visa advice to applicants. All such enquiries should be submitted to Oxford University’s student visa and immigration advisers via email at student.immigration@admin.ox.ac.uk

Tutor

Dr Alexandra Zimmermann

Tutor

Dr Alexandra Zimmermann is a Senior Research Fellow at the Wildlife Conservation Research Unit at University of Oxford, the founding Chair of the IUCN SSC Human-Wildlife Conflict & Coexistence Specialist Group, and founder of Negotiating Coexistence. For the past 25 years she has worked on human-wildlife conflict (HWC) in a vast range of social, political and economic contexts around the globe, including conflicts over jaguars and pumas in Brazil and Venezuela, elephants in India and Indonesia, tigers in Nepal, bears in Bolivia, and fruit bats in Mauritius. Alexandra specialises in conflict analysis, community engagement, stakeholder dialogue, dispute negotiation and social research. She leads an annual MSc-level module in the Department of Geography at Oxford University and has taught a range of professional courses for the World Bank’s Global Wildlife Program and the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN). She was the lead Editor of the IUCN Guidelines on Human-Wildlife Conflict and Coexistence and is currently preparing the first comprehensive textbook on the subject (Human-Wildlife Conflict and Coexistence in Theory and Practice, Cambridge University Press) as well as a practitioner’s guide to managing conflicts (Negotiating Conflicts in Conservation, Oxford University Press). In 2023 she led and hosted the first global summit on HWC (International Conference on Human-Wildlife Conflict and Coexistence) was previously a senior advisor on HWC to the World Bank, and regularly advises the UN and numerous governments on HWC policy and conflict negotiation matters. Raised in SE Asia, Middle East, Europe and Canada, her initial training was in zoology and conservation biology (BSc, 1997, Leeds University, MSc, 2000, University of Kent) before she specialised in conservation social sciences (DPhil, 2014, Oxford University) and trained in nonprofit strategic management at Harvard Business School (2015), conflict negotiation at Harvard Law School (2017) and diplomatic negotiation at the United Nations (UNITAR, 2019).

Application

Please download the application form.

All sections should be completed fully, clearly and in BLOCK CAPITALS.

Applications should be emailed to the programme administrator at: summercourses@conted.ox.ac.uk

If you experience issues using Microsoft Word, you can find a .PDF version of the application form here which you can complete and scan.

Application deadline

Subject to the availability of places, the closing date for applications is 5 August 2024 at 2.00pm.

Applicants will normally be offered a place by email within 6 days of the application being received. Applicants who are offered a place must respond within 14 days to accept or decline the offer.

Participants with a disability or mobility impairment

The aim of the Department is to treat all participants equally and  we welcome applications from people with disabilities. Individuals` needs are taken into account as far as possible, providing reasonable adaptations and assistance within the resources available. We ask that people let us know of any disability or special need (confidentially if required) so that we can help them participate as fully as possible.

When applying for the Department's college-based programmes, prospective participants with mobility difficulties or visual or hearing impairments may want to make preliminary enquiries to the programme administrator, as the age and layout of these colleges often makes them user-unfriendly (although adaptations are often possible). Oxford, as an ancient city, tends to be difficult to navigate for people with disabilities. The number of very old buildings, designed in an age less sensitive to issues of disability, makes access to much of the city centre difficult. However, the Department will do as much as it can to make study with us possible.

Participants taking the course on a residential basis should contact us if they will have problems gaining access to a bedroom located on upper or basement floors.

Queries?

Please contact the Programme Administrator by email at summercourses@conted.ox.ac.uk

Selection criteria

Applicants should have a relevant academic or professional background in the subject area, and will be asked on the application form to provide their qualifications and reason for applying. 

Accommodation

Applicants can choose to apply for a residential or non-residential place on the programme.  If you choose a residential place, you will stay in a single en-suite study bedroom, with your own private toilet and shower. 

All rooms are used by students during term-time, so feature a desk and a wardrobe. Please note that hairdryers and international plug adaptors are not provided.

Laundry facilities (washing machines, dryers, irons) are available within the College. Washers and dryers are pay-as-you-go. 

We regret that participants cannot be accommodated at Keble College either prior to or beyond their programme dates. Family members and/or friends who are not enrolled on this programme cannot be accommodated in college.

Terms & conditions for applicants and students

Information on financial support