Research overview: future directions in human-big cat coexistence research

This overview synthesises emerging priorities and frontiers in human-big cat conflict and coexistence research. It reviews calls for more rigorous impact evaluation, greater integration of social science, attention to equity and gender, scaling of community-owned incentives, harnessing technology for early warning and monitoring, and reframing the field around positive coexistence rather than only conflict reduction. The literature also highlights climate change, expanding human footprints, and recovering predator populations as drivers that will reshape conflict. The survey frames the field as maturing from descriptive case studies toward predictive, evaluative, and interdisciplinary science, arguing that securing the future of lions, tigers, leopards, jaguars, pumas, and snow leopards depends on advancing both the social and ecological understanding of shared landscapes.