PATHWAYS FOR WILDLIFE AND ECOSYSTEM RESILIENCE: ENVIRONMENTAL STUDIES IN A CHANGING WORLD

Abstract

Sustainable futures are inseparable from the persistence of wildlife and the ecosystems that sustain them. Accelerating land conversion, climate change, pollution, and unsustainable extraction are eroding biodiversity worldwide and weakening the ecological processes upon which societies depend (IPBES, 2019; Haddad et al., 2015). This chapter synthesizes contemporary research to identify practical pathways for strengthening wildlife and ecosystem resilience across global contexts. It highlights the complementary roles of nature-based solutions, habitat restoration, landscape connectivity, adaptive governance, and emerging monitoring technologies such as camera traps and machine learning (Cohen-Shacham et al., 2016; Norouzzadeh et al., 2018). Empirical evidence from community conservancies and human–wildlife coexistence initiatives demonstrates that conservation outcomes improve when local institutions, equitable benefit sharing, and ecological objectives are aligned (Naidoo et al., 2016; König et al., 2021). Rewilding and large-scale restoration further offer opportunities to recover ecological function and resilience (Perino et al., 2019). The chapter concludes by outlining research and policy priorities that integrate ecological science with social systems, arguing that resilient futures emerge where biodiversity conservation and human well-being are pursued together.