Coexistence is an ever-changing state where humans and wildlife both adapt and adjust to share landscapes.
The Cincinnati Zoo & Botanical Garden’s Coexistence Coalition is dedicated to advocating for a future where wildlife and humans thrive. To do this, the coalition forms and nurtures impactful collaborations with grassroots organizations, non-governmental organizations (NGOs), other AZA organizations, and more.

By supporting communities toward coexistence, the Cincinnati Zoo is facilitating a brighter future for wildlife and people.
The Zoo seeks to positively impact wildlife and resource conservation by helping communities locally and in targeted global sites embrace coexistence.
The coalition works to achieve the Cincinnati Zoo’s Positive Impact Model across multiple areas of focus, including:
- Community engagement
- Wildlife coexistence, reduced conflict, and species recovery
- Habitat restoration and diversification
- Sustainable regenerative practices
Cincinnati Zoo & Botanical Garden’s Positive Impact Model:
Coexistence Coalition in Practice:
The Cincinnati Zoo’s Coexistence Coalition takes an integrated approach to conservation, combining both ecological and human dimensions essential for coexistence impact. We empower communities to embrace coexistence initiatives. We aim to increase our impact for wildlife, mobilize the Zoo’s communities to increase involvement and resources, elevate our partnerships as proactive collaborators, and embrace environmental justice in all that we do. We are strengthening partnerships and mobilizing our diverse staff and audiences to build connections to our mission.
Central to our program is the development of enduring partnerships with established organizations grounded in the communities living with the wildlife we seek to conserve. We provide resources, training and support to empower these organizations and enable them to pioneer novel approaches that could unlock increased positive impact for both wildlife and the communities who coexist with them. We seek to complement existing conservation efforts and are committed to advancing education, capacity-building, and research. We contribute to our partners’ international storytelling efforts, inject additional funding and/or resources for increased capacity, and provide in-kind support.
Our overarching objective is to safeguard the persistence of wildlife populations while upholding socially and ethically acceptable methods that resonate with and empower local communities. Our goals for the Coexistence Coalition are 1) to help wildlife populations be healthy and viable, 2) to enhance people’s tolerance and acceptance of wildlife in their communities and landscapes, and 3) to reduce risks from wildlife to manageable levels.
We are working toward these goals by exploring innovative ideas that integrate biology, sociology, politics, and culture, ultimately elevating contemporary conservation practices. We seek to balance perceived risks and unique local contexts encompassing values, worldviews, religious beliefs, cultural practices, and more. While we acknowledge the potential for negative incidents for both humans and wildlife, coexistence prioritizes benefits to outweigh and minimize these possible costs. We seek to design interventions to enhance coexistence that are ecologically suitable, economically viable, and socially acceptable.
Through our active partnerships, we aspire to:
- reinforce positive perceptions of wildlife within local communities, transforming them from perceived nuisances into valuable assets;
- augment and innovate efforts to reduce human-wildlife conflicts while ensuring community needs and sustainable livelihoods; and
- promote landscape connectivity in vulnerable regions and monitor wildlife occurrence in and movements through complex, human-dominated landscapes.
Coexistence Coalition in Action
See some of the Coexistence Coalition’s areas of focus below and explore our Saving Wildlife projects to see the range of coexistence strategies underway.
Coexistence Impact Fellowship
To reach the next level beyond the Conservation Impact team’s capacity onsite, in 2022 we created the Coexistence Impact Fellowship Program at the Cincinnati Zoo. Our Fellows across many projects and partnerships deepen our involvement and efficiency when implementing action plans. Further, we want to increase the accessibility of conservation careers to those currently less represented in our field.
Coalition partners in the Fellowships include:
Our fellows are fully focused on their select projects. The conservation impact fellow program specifically prioritizes candidates who are native to the country where the field conservation projects are located, with the goal of further engaging local communities, and investing in local researchers – providing professional development opportunities as they begin their careers.
This fellowship program is our deep investment in the professional development of people of color from the communities where we hope to foster conservation expertise.
Resilience and Climate Adaptation:
In our changing climate we face an upswing in unpredictable and extreme weather events. Increasing our community’s capacity to adapt to environmental changes and strengthening our ability to respond to disasters is a top priority of the City of Cincinnati and the Zoo.
Solar Energy for Communities:
For the past several years, the Zoo has successfully installed solar PV systems at community centers, schools, and churches in Avondale and other neighboring communities. We will formalize this program and leverage our partnerships in order to ensure these community outreach solar projects are completed on an annual basis. Learn about 2022 installation.
The Advanced Inquiry Program (AIP) is a one-of-a-kind, online master’s degree program from Miami University (Oxford, OH) and Project Dragonfly, in partnership with the Cincinnati Zoo & Botanical Garden. Created for working professionals, the AIP immerses students in collaborative inquiry and action as they champion change for the environment and their local community. With professional and academic mentoring and self-designed Master Plans, students adapt their degree path to fit their interests in fields such as community-engaged conservation, inquiry-driven education, environmental justice, learning across K-12 and informal settings, animal care and welfare, green business innovation, climate change, urban ecology, human-nature relationships, environmental restoration, and public engagement in science.
AIP students join a network of local and national leaders, working together to improve their professions, institutions, neighborhoods, and environments. Students can enroll in either a Master of Arts in Teaching (M.A.T.) in the biological sciences or a Master of Arts (M.A.) in biology. Through web-based coursework from Miami and face-to-face experiential learning and field study at the Zoo, you will connect with classmates, Miami University faculty, Zoo experts, and community leaders locally, nationally, and globally.
Internships
We are committed to creating more equitable workforce strategies and expanding access to early career experiences in the zoo field. We recognize that there is a lack of diversity in our workforce, due in part to less accessible career pathways, and have worked to increase interest and opportunity for all. We offer a stipend to help offset expenses while interns participate in our program, expanding the opportunity to work in this unique, fun, and rewarding field.
ZooTeens
Our ZooTeen program is committed to whole-person youth development. Whether collecting data on pollinators, providing interpretive messaging at different habitats, or supporting our Education programs, ZooTeens make an enormous impact on Zoo staff and visitors alike. ZooTeens are able to build knowledge, gain leadership experience, and develop professional skills as they learn more about CZBG’s conservation efforts and share those stories with a wider audience.
Local and Global Partners
- Adventure Crew
- ARCAS Guatemala
- Asian Nature Conservation Foundation
- Avondale Community Council
- Avondale Development Corporation: Avondale Quality of Life Plan
- Bahamas National Trust
- Bahamians, Birds, & Botany
- Bird Endowment
- Bring the Elephant Home (Thailand)
- Cheetah Outreach Trust
- Cincinnati Children’s Hospital
- Cincinnati Parks
- Cincinnati Recycling and Reuse Hub
- The City of Cincinnati: Green Cincinnati Plan (GCP)
- Community Members
- Congo-Apes
- Conservation Initiatives (India)
- Friends of Bonobos
- Great Parks of Hamilton County
- Green Umbrella
- Groundwork Ohio River Valley
- ICAS Brazil
- International Bird Rescue
- International Elephant Foundation
- Lion Landscapes
- MadTree Brewing
- Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Corrections
- Rockdale Academy
- Save the Golden Lion Tamarin
- The Sloth Institute (Costa Rica)
- SORALO (Kenya)
- The Southwest Florida Turtle Project
- SSA
- Tusk Trust
- VulPro
- WASIMA (Tanzania)
- Wild Entrust
- WWF
Our vision is to facilitate a brighter future for wildlife and people. Coexistence requires listening to the voices and needs on all sides – animals, plants, and people. Through an empowering alliance promoting benefits for all, we can collaborate, reduce conflicts, and sustain healthy landscapes and resources for wildlife and people. Coexistence is the thread tying all our conservation stories together, with interactive strategies, community engagement, and proactive Zoo leadership.
Our goal is to activate our staff, visitors, stakeholders, and audiences to be inspired by wildlife to participate in conservation. In 2022, we sent a group of Zoo staff to Kenya in order to advance projects around wildlife ranger support, architectural designs, and education interpretive planning. Each year, the Cincinnati Zoo will be sending a contingent of staff to Kenya to provide expertise and skills for our close partners in SORALO. The Coexistence Champion(s) will help activate staff back here in Cincinnati by sharing stories and their connection to the work in SORALO.