Analyzing the spatial dimension of the human/wildlife conflicts in the Sustainable Development Reserve of Uatuma (Amazonas, Brasil)

Since the 1990s, many researches have been conducted within diverse academic fields on conflicts between humans and the wildlife. This type of conflict may be defined as any form of interaction resulting in a negative impact for either side. This paper aims to reveal the spatial dimension of the human-animal conflicts, based on a fieldwork made in the Reserve of sustainable development of the Uatuma River, an inhabited protected area located in the state of Amazonas in Brazil. Detailed interviews of 58 informants between January 2011 and January 2013 resulted to the census of 258 negative interactions involving wildlife. These interactions led to relatively extensive damage (loss of 35.3% of subsistence crops and 25.5% of farm animals) and caused the killing of 283 wild animals, some of them belonging to locally threatened species (jaguars, giant otters). Our analysis shows how these conflicts are produced by: the current spatial organization (recent changes in habitat configuration facilitate wildlife attacks); a formulated resentment from local populations toward the requalification of their territory into a protected area, and a set of individual and collective representations about the "right place" of the wild animals.