Authors: Iwamura, Takuya;

Estimating human-wildlife encounters is the key concept for the assessments of both the threats to biodiversity conservation. While many factors are considered to be associated with the human-wildlife encounters, it can be conceptually modeled as spatio-temporal overlaps between human and wildlife presence. In rural to frontier environment, spatial aspects of animal presence is often represented as species distribution model or abundance model, while temporal nature is rather difficult to capture. On the other hand, spatio-temporal activities of human is often captured as hunting pressures or land cover changes in conservation and ecology context. With these methods, we are deeply in need to address the issue of human agency, meaning how each human decide what to do in where at which timing. In my talk, I will introduce the modeling framework and concept of Agent-based modeling (ABM) in the human-wildlife encounter rate by using the example of Guyana's savannah and Sri Lanka's farmers. I will discuss how to model spatio-temporal nature of animals and humans, while taking human agency in the center piece of mechanism. I will also discuss potential of such methods to explore the dual objectives of human-wildlife interactions in conservation and public health.