Conservationists and their allies worldwide are dedicated to effective management of human–wildlife interactions in order to minimize conflicts for coexistence (CBD 2022). Despite varying definitions of human–wildlife coexistence (Gao and Clark 2023), coexistence as a goal generally requires humans to share landscapes and natural resources with wildlife in sustainable ways (IUCN 2023). But it presents three interconnected challenges.

The first challenge primarily concerns the practical aspects of coexistence, particularly the ecological dimension involving human interactions with wildlife and related ecological processes. Living closely with wildlife poses actual and perceived risks to local livelihoods and personal safety. Examples include snow leopards killing livestock, elephants raiding crops, primates damaging properties, and bears attacking humans. Such negative impacts of wildlife on humans are commonly believed to decrease people's tolerance toward wildlife, reduce support for conservation efforts, and encourage possible retaliation. Subsequent management actions might include modifying wildlife behavior and distribution through lethal or nonlethal techniques (via installation of barriers and deterrents; translocation; and hazing) and fostering tolerance (through compensation, insurance, or conservation performance payments; and awareness-raising and educational initiatives).

The second challenge has to do with the social dimension of coexistence, which involves multiple sectors and domains within society, such as political, economic, religious, and other institutional structures and functions that govern the creation and distribution of natural and cultural resources. At the heart of this challenge is governance: who has the authority and control to decide how and where people and wildlife will be able to share the landscape in the long term, and how formal and informal decisions are made, implemented, evaluated, and adjusted. People's varying identities, expectations, and demands often lead to different views on human–wildlife interactions and disagreements on the means and ends of coexistence. Unlike practical challenges, governance issues do not have rigid spatiotemporal boundaries. Decisions made at international and national levels, such as the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework, may enable or constrain how subnational (including local) communities interact with their wildlife cohabitants. Similarly, past decisions can create historical encumbrances that impact present-day social and decision-making processes.

The third challenge pertains to the cultural dimension of coexistence, which involves fundamental aspects of persistent patterns of conduct and underlying societal rules that shape decision-making processes. It encompasses people's cultural beliefs about reality (ontology), knowledge (epistemology), and ethics (axiology), as well as their sense of self and accepted modes of problem solving (Clark 2022). Often taken for granted and operating at a subconscious level, these beliefs form the foundation of our sociocultural fabric, enabling us to construct shared meaning from our individual life experiences as well as imposing limitations on our thoughts, words, and actions through social norms. A critical aspect of the coexistence challenge is the existence of contradictory cultural beliefs, leading to conflicting views on how to perceive and manage our relationship with wildlife and one another. In many societies, cultural beliefs tend to dichotomize people and wildlife, emphasizing positivistic scientific management, economic efficiency, and technical rationality. However, such beliefs can conflict with the worldviews of many Indigenous peoples and local communities. Furthermore, as contexts change over time, traditional cultural beliefs may become less relevant, necessitating the construction of new meanings and meaning-making processes.

Addressing these three challenges is a formidable task. Achieving coexistence, an integral part of the global vision to “live in harmony with nature by 2050” (CBD 2022), does not imply the complete absence of negative human–wildlife interactions, but rather creating conditions where conflicts can be managed in socially, ecologically, and economically acceptable ways, enabling both people and wildlife to thrive. This requires communities to integrate diverse objectives and practices across various societal domains, including biodiversity conservation, sustainable development, and protection of human rights. In addition, the financial and sociocultural capital available for conservation often falls short of the magnitude of the problems at hand. Conservation efforts also contend with numerous other pressing and competing demands. Moreover, the allocation of scarce resources tends to favor paths of least resistance, and, consequently, coexistence efforts often become reactive, superficial, or symbolic in nature, addressing immediate management issues and short-term exigencies while neglecting more proactive, far-sighted, and strategic options.

How can we achieve the crucial goal of human–wildlife coexistence within the constraints of limited resources and complex contexts? Our experience suggests that the theory and practice of grand strategy (Table 1) can greatly enhance the effectiveness of conservation professionals and allies.

In any realm of human affairs, despite bounded rationality and the uncertainty inherent in decision making, a strategic approach is believed to surpass mere tactical or random actions (Freedman 2015). Strategy involves deliberately deploying means to achieve desired ends as stipulated by a policy (Lasswell 1952), and grand strategy entails a long-term orientation, a broad scope across societal domains, and deep analysis. Historically, grand strategy has encompassed how nation-states employ all available resources to pursue their most vital national interests (Balzacq and Krebs 2021), but today this kind of thinking is being applied in international relations, public health, and fisheries management, among other fields. Conceptually, grand strategy can be thought of as a theory of change, as a process, and as a habit of mind (Balzacq and Krebs 2021).

As a theory of change, grand strategy can help us delineate the desired outcomes of coexistence, the means to realize those outcomes, and a causal mechanism to explain how these means can bring about the desired human–wildlife relationship. It encourages us to look beyond immediate, direct determinants of human–wildlife interactions to identify other factors that enable or hinder coexistence. Thus, it offers a cohesive roadmap to guide the allocation of resources and coordinate collective action. Notably, it can demonstrate how collaborative efforts by diverse participants can synergistically achieve long-term coexistence.

As a process, grand strategy requires broad participation, consideration of multiple perspectives, and service to common interest outcomes. It does not prescribe fixed rules of conduct for every situation, but instead encourages people to navigate ever-changing social processes, including the entanglement of interests in decision making across different spatiotemporal and institutional scales. It requires continuously realigning means and ends in response to evolving contexts. It can help optimize our use of limited resources and enhance effectiveness by maintaining an overarching direction and making necessary adjustments in strategy and tactics over time.

As a habit of mind, grand strategy compels us to embrace multiple, diverse, and sometimes opposing perspectives, interests, and demands while maintaining the ability to function effectively. It embodies a personal disposition and cognition that consciously integrates a long-term sense of direction with short-term sensitivity to surroundings (Gaddis 2018). This habit of mind requires people to transcend unmindful, deeply engrained conventions and practices, such as focusing on single species, organizational self-interests, or bounded disciplinary and political domains. Grand strategy can foster a standpoint of thoughtful pragmatism that simultaneously embraces simplicity and complexity, selectiveness and comprehensiveness, resourcefulness and purposefulness: all oriented toward common, rather than special, interests.

In conclusion, we believe that grand strategy holds immense potential for conservation professionals working on challenges associated with human–wildlife coexistence. This conceptual tool can help us navigate the complexities inherent in conservation work and align our finite resources and ambitious commitments.

世界各地的自然资源保护主义者及其盟友致力于有效管理人类与野生动物的互动，以尽量减少共存冲突（CBD  2022）。尽管人类与野生动物共存的定义不同（Gao和Clark  2023），共存作为一个目标通常要求人类以可持续的方式与野生动物共享景观和自然资源（IUCN  2023）。但它提出了三个相互关联的挑战。

第一个挑战主要涉及共存的实际方面，特别是涉及人类与野生动物相互作用和相关生态过程的生态方面。与野生动物密切生活对当地生计和人身安全构成实际和感知的风险。例子包括雪豹杀死牲畜、大象袭击农作物、灵长类动物破坏财产以及熊攻击人类。人们普遍认为野生动物对人类的这种负面影响会降低人们对野生动物的容忍度，减少对保护工作的支持，并鼓励可能的报复。

第二个挑战与共存的社会维度有关，它涉及社会内的多个部门和领域，例如政治、经济、宗教以及其他管理自然和文化资源的创造和分配的制度结构和功能。这一挑战的核心是治理：谁拥有权力和控制权来决定人们和野生动物如何以及在哪里能够长期共享景观，以及如何制定、实施、评估和调整正式和非正式的决策。人们不同的身份、期望和要求往往会导致对人的不同看法——野生动物之间的相互作用以及对共存方式和目的的分歧。与实际挑战不同，治理问题没有严格的时空界限。国际和国家层面做出的决策，例如昆明-蒙特利尔全球生物多样性框架，可能会促进或限制地方（包括地方）社区与其野生动物共生者的互动。同样，过去的决策可能会造成历史障碍，影响当今的社会和决策过程。

第三个挑战涉及共存的文化层面，其中涉及持久的行为模式的基本方面以及塑造决策过程的基本社会规则。它涵盖了人们对现实（本体论）、知识（认识论）和道德（价值论）的文化信仰，以及他们的自我意识和公认的问题解决模式（Clark 2022  ））。这些信念通常被认为是理所当然的，并在潜意识层面上运作，它们构成了我们社会文化结构的基础，使我们能够从个人生活经历中构建共同的意义，并通过社会规范对我们的思想、言语和行为施加限制。共存挑战的一个关键方面是存在相互矛盾的文化信仰，导致人们在如何看待和管理我们与野生动物以及彼此之间的关系方面存在相互冲突的观点。在许多社会中，文化信仰往往将人和野生动物二分，强调实证科学管理、经济效率和技术合理性。然而，这种信仰可能与许多原住民和当地社区的世界观相冲突。此外，随着环境随着时间的推移而变化，

解决这三个挑战是一项艰巨的任务。实现共存是“到 2050 年与自然和谐相处”（CBD  2022）全球愿景的一个组成部分，并不意味着完全不存在消极的人类——野生动物之间的互动，而是创造条件，以社会、生态和经济上可接受的方式管理冲突，使人类和野生动物都能繁荣发展。这要求社区整合不同社会领域的不同目标和实践，包括生物多样性保护、可持续发展和保护人权。此外，可用于保护的财政和社会文化资本往往不足以解决当前问题的严重程度。保护工作还应对许多其他紧迫和竞争的需求。此外，稀缺资源的分配往往倾向于阻力最小的路径，因此，共存努力往往变得被动、肤浅或象征性，

在资源有限、环境复杂的情况下，如何实现人与野生动物共存的关键目标？我们的经验表明，大战略的理论和实践（表1）可以极大地提高保护专业人员和盟友的效率。

在人类事务的任何领域，尽管决策存在有限理性和固有的不确定性，但战略方法被认为超越单纯的战术或随机行动（Freedman 2015  ）。战略涉及有意识地部署手段以实现政策规定的预期目标（Lasswell  1952），而大战略则需要长期定位、跨社会领域的广泛范围和深入分析。从历史上看，大战略涵盖了民族国家如何利用所有可用资源来追求其最重要的国家利益（Balzacq and Krebs  2021）），但如今这种思维正在应用于国际关系、公共卫生和渔业管理等领域。从概念上讲，大战略可以被视为一种变革理论、一个过程和一种思维习惯（Balzacq and Krebs  2021）。

作为一种变革理论，大战略可以帮助我们描绘共存的预期结果、实现这些结果的手段，以及解释这些手段如何实现理想的人类与野生动物关系的因果机制。它鼓励我们超越人类与野生动物相互作用的直接决定因素，以确定促进或阻碍共存的其他因素。因此，它提供了一个有凝聚力的路线图来指导资源分配和协调集体行动。值得注意的是，它可以展示不同参与者的协作努力如何协同实现长期共存。

作为一个过程，大战略需要广泛参与、考虑多种视角并服务于共同利益结果。它并没有为每种情况规定固定的行为规则，而是鼓励人们驾驭不断变化的社会进程，包括跨越不同时空和制度尺度的决策中的利益纠葛。它需要不断调整手段和目标，以适应不断变化的环境。它可以帮助我们优化有限资源的使用，并通过保持总体方向并随着时间的推移对战略和战术进行必要的调整来提高效率。

作为一种思维习惯，大战略迫使我们拥抱多种、多样化、有时甚至是相反的观点、利益和需求，同时保持有效运作的能力。它体现了一种有意识地将长期方向感与对周围环境的短期敏感性结合起来的个人性格和认知（Gaddis 2018  ））。这种思维习惯要求人们超越不经意的、根深蒂固的惯例和做法，例如关注单一物种、组织自身利益或有限的学科和政治领域。大战略可以培养深思熟虑的实用主义立场，同时包含简单性和复杂性、选择性和全面性、足智多谋和目的性：一切都以共同利益而不是特殊利益为导向。

总之，我们相信，大战略对于致力于应对人类与野生动物共存相关挑战的保护专业人员具有巨大潜力。这个概念工具可以帮助我们应对保护工作固有的复杂性，并协调我们有限的资源和雄心勃勃的承诺。