Humani – Mountain areas shared by recreational users and wildlife

The Auvergne Rhône-Alpes region is particularly attractive to tourists and nature sports enthusiasts, especially in mountain areas. This trend, coupled with the diversification of sporting and recreational activities, has led to an increase in the number of visitors to mountain areas throughout the year.

This presence can have negative effects on the demographic functioning of animal populations and their distribution in different habitat types, and therefore indirectly on the biodiversity of the environment.

These effects of human presence need to be quantified in order to understand the future of wildlife in mountain socio-ecosystems. But it is also necessary to understand the way in which users invest the natural environment, which implies analyzing their practices and representations.

The project focuses on

1. Determination of different user profiles based on their motives for practising, their perception of wild animals and the possible disturbance caused.
2. An analysis of how humans and animals organize themselves in a shared space, and how each reconfigures its spatialities in the presence of the other.
3. Assessing the impact of human presence on animal populations, and subsequently on the biodiversity of the environments they occupy.