Beyond visible losses: Documenting the invisible impacts of human-wildlife conflict on livelihood sustainability in Nepal's lowland protected areas

Human-wildlife conflict (HWC) imposes well-documented visible costs on rural communities, yet its invisible impacts, manifested in psychosocial, economic, and social losses, remain systematically underrepresented in research and policy. We present a multi-site assessment of invisible HWC impacts on livelihood sustainability in Nepal, using the Sustainable Livelihood Framework (SLF). Through household surveys with 641 respondents across 60 settlements in the buffer zones of six lowland protected areas, we documented 16 types of invisible impacts spanning five livelihood capitals: human, social, natural, physical, and financial. Financial capital was most severely affected, with 66% of respondents reporting increased transaction and opportunity costs, 56% reporting lost productive labor time, and 37% reporting increased expenditures on conflict prevention measures. Psychological distress and trauma were the most prevalent human capital impact (65.2%), while social capital erosion, including negative conservation attitudes and community displacement, were least prevalent. OLS regression models revealed that protected area location was the dominant predictor of cumulative invisible impacts; respondents near Shuklaphanta and Bardiya national parks reported significantly higher invisible impacts than those near Chitwan. Notably, Dalit ethnicity was the strongest demographic predictor of financial invisible impacts, even after controlling for income and location, consistent with structural barriers to accessing compensation mechanisms. These findings demonstrate that invisible impacts are not supplementary to visible HWC losses but constitute a distinct and consequential dimension of livelihood insecurity. Formally integrating invisible impacts into HWC mitigation frameworks through mental health services, simplified claims procedures, and inclusive governance, is essential for advancing sustainable human-wildlife coexistence.