ZONING: A CONCEPTUAL INTRODUCTION

Conflicts in land use are an inevitable consequence of the presently high human population densities living on a planet of finite size. Within this finite space, land use planners struggle to integrate as many potentially conflicting elements as possible using two approaches: the multi-use concept where compatible land uses can occur in the same area, and zoning. Zoning is any form of geographically differentiated land management where different forms of potentially conflicting land use are given priority in different areas. For example, in modern town planning some areas are zoned as residential, others as commercial, industrial, agricultural or recreational. Zoning has been widely used in biodiversity conservation in the creation of national parks, nature reserves and other protected areas. The focus of this chapter is to examine how zoning can be applied to the conservation of large carnivores. This requires balancing the twin goals of conserving viable populations of large carnivores, and minimizing conflicts with humans, which is proving to be an exceptional challenge in our crowded world.

LARGE CARNIVORES AND HUMAN ACTIVITY: CONFLICTS, COMPATIBILITY AND CONTEXT

Conflict

Zoning is only an issue because large carnivores cause conflicts with some human activities and interests throughout the world. These conflicts have been described in detail elsewhere (Woodroffe et al., Chapter 1, Thirgood et al., Chapter 2) but here we shall list the most important conflicts relevant for the discussion on zoning.