Multiple risk analysis at the interface between pastoral livestock systems and wildlife

Pastoral systems operate within constrained ecosystems where livestock, wildlife, and human activities coexist. This coexistence, increasingly intensified by global environmental and socio-economic changes generates multiple, complex, and still insufficiently integrated risks. Understanding these dynamics is essential to ensuring the long-term sustainability of pastoral territories. This article aims to characterize the main risks affecting pastoral livestock systems at the interface with wildlife through a large diversity of conditions. Thus, we conducted a systematic literature search and screening process, analyzing a wide range of cases based on a corpus of 6,078 scientific publications identified through eight targeted search equations. This method is therefore structured around (i) conducting an initial quantitative, temporal, and thematic analysis to provide an overview of the research landscape, (ii) examining research themes and publications to identify dominant risk areas and their interconnections, and (iii) performing an in-depth analysis of the selected case studies in order to provide more detailed description of each identified risk. From this investigation, we developed a risk analysis framework structured around three broad categories: (1) biological and ecological risks (zoonoses, parasitic diseases, predation, and competition); (2) socio-economic risks (financial losses, conflicts, and psychosocial impacts); and (3) amplifying systemic risks (climate change, societal transformations, and habitat loss and fragmentation). This study highlights risks that are multiple, interwoven and deeply embedded within complex socio-ecological systems. It shows that risk should be understood as an interdisciplinary concept, allowing us to move beyond sectoral perspectives and to reveal the multidimensional nature of the interface between wildlife and pastoral livestock systems, where ecological, health, economic, and social processes interact. While wildlife can represent a source of risk for agropastoral activities, the latter are also sometimes considered as generating risks and gradually rendered illegitimate in certain territories, thereby fueling tensions around conservation objectives and territorial management practices. Moreover, the deterioration of human–nature relationships emerges as a latent risk that shapes the dynamics of both conflict and cooperation. In this perspective, the findings invite us to rethink risk management through an integrated and inclusive approach, grounded in cooperation across disciplines, institutions, and knowledge systems. Finally, this article calls for a reevaluation of the conditions for a sustainable coexistence between livestock and wildlife, understood as management practices and land-use strategies that support wildlife conservation while enhancing the resilience of pastoral systems, and advocates for a systemic and place-based approach to risk analysis in the face of global changes.