Protected areas as contested contact zones: Leopards, livestock, and the politics of coexistence

The prevailing human-wildlife conflict paradigm inadequately captures the complex multi-species interactions within protected areas, as it disregards the agency of non-human actors and the insights of local knowledge. This study moves beyond this anthropocentric lens by reconceptualising the Tieqiaoshan Nature Reserve in Shanxi Province, China, as a dynamic multi-species contact zone. Rather than treating these dynamics as purely ecological, we show that spatial displacement and temporal adaptation constitute a politics of coexistence, through which non-human actors reconfigure governance authority, enforcement practices, and the limits of exclusionary conservation. Through a mixed-methods approach that triangulates two years of infrared camera data (15,351 detections) with in-depth ethnographic interviews, we reveal how free-ranging cattle, acting as a primary and quasi-autonomous ecological force, restructure wildlife communities. Our analysis reveals that free-ranging cattle drive a distinct spatial restructuring of wildlife, competitively displacing roedeer and facilitating habitat conditions for hares. In parallel, North China leopards undergo a significant behavioural adaptation, shifting towards nocturnality (temporal overlap Δ = 0.80). These quantitative patterns are prefigured and are eloquently explained by the villagers’ ecological knowledge, which recognises cattle as the key ecological agent and highlights the dynamics of interspecies interactions. The study advances both the theory and practice of more-than-human conservation through a multi-species spatiotemporal framework for mitigating conservation-livelihood tensions and a replicable methodology for integrating quantitative ecology with local knowledge. • Investigates the multi-species dynamics within a nature reserve in China. • Centres on more-than-human geography and multi-species politics. • Introduces a multi-species spatiotemporal co-governance framework. • Challenges hierarchical conservation models for different species. • Explores spatial restructuring of wildlife driven by free-ranging cattle.