ABSTRACT
The green revolution of the 1960s shaped current approaches to large carnivore conservation and paved the way for the successful conservation policy occurring today. Several legislative changes were introduced, and functionally extinct species went from being actively harvested to being fully protected. These changes went largely unnoticed until recently in most societies in Europe, since these countries had been largely devoid of wolves, bears, lynx and wolverines. The situation in Sweden was no exception. Members of the public had no first-hand experience of large carnivores, and the species first needed to become abundant before people could interact with them sufficiently. Large carnivores are now back, and this is accompanied by symbolic constructions that fuel strong and opposing demands for policy and management. Large carnivore conservation and management takes place in a highly contested political arena, and this is likely to continue unless better insights are gained about values at stake, what these values symbolise in terms of policy preferences and how these can be met. In this chapter, we will track large carnivore numbers and attitude trends and we will discuss implications in terms of governance challenges and new roles to be facilitated.
