Volume 47, Issue 1, Spring 2025
2023 ISEE Special Issue
Martin Drenthen
Pages 41-63
https://doi.org/10.5840/enviroethics202513194
Sharing Landscapes with Wolves
Interspecies Communication, Empathy, and Control
This paper examines the role of interspecies communication in the pursuit of coexistence with wolves returning to the Netherlands. Low-conflict coexistence with wolves in densely populated countries calls for an abandonment of the traditional culture-nature dichotomy. Moreover, it requires that humans learn to understand the wolf¡¯s needs and ways perceiving the world, and engage in a ¡®negotiation process¡¯ with wolves about how to share the landscape. However, the mere knowledge of how other beings perceive the world does not suffice; it might even lead to a more controlling human attitude towards wildlife. Sharing landscapes with resurging wolves in a more ¡®meaningful¡¯ or ¡®convivial¡¯ way, requires a willingness to co-adapt and recognize wolves as beings with agency and a legitimate claim to space. A mutual learning process is needed, in which humans and nonhumans both can learn how to thrive, and how to avoid unnecessary conflicts in a shared landscape.