Jaguars in the Commons: Napo Runa Perspectives on Human-Jaguar Conviviality

Introduction

Jaguars are mighty cats. They represent the power of nature and are seen as protectors of the rainforest. This is how WWF presents this species on their website (WWF 2025). Jaguars are considered important for conservation due to their role as guardians of the ecosystems they inhabit. As top predators, they are considered to regulate the food chain and play an important role in controlling the populations of other species, which is essential for a healthy ecosystem (Espinosa et al. 2016). However, different human actions threaten the survival of this important species. In this regard, jaguar conservation in Ecuador as elsewhere especially considers local people to be the root cause of the most serious threat to jaguars. As Hussain (2019) has described for snow leopards, this is a narrative that goes back to the fortress conservation logic, which is embedded in the core principles of modern conservation. This narrative includes a perspective taken by most conservationists in Ecuador, which sees human-jaguar relations as inherently conflictual. This perspective builds on a human-nature dualism, which originated with the Kantian discussion during the Enlightenment in Europe (Descola 2013), and has played a major role in politically, but also very practically separating humans from nonhumans in protected areas and other (conservation) spaces (Fairhead and Leach 1996; Escobar 1999; Brockington and Igoe 2006; Fletcher 2010; Haller 2013; West 2016; Sullivan 2017).

Scientific debates about conservation have since moved on from a focus on conflict and separation to emphasize the importance of tolerance, coexistence and even conviviality (Frank 2016; Margulies and Karanth 2018; Büscher and Fletcher 2020; Donfrancesco 2024). Research on convivial conservation shows the importance of local autonomy for more sustainable human-nature interactions (Büscher and Fletcher 2020; Iordachescu 2022; Massarella et al. 2023).

Those perspectives align with local and especially indigenous views rooted in relational ontologies. This paper features a Napo Runa community and their conviviality with jaguars. Living with and from the forest to Amazonians does not only include use of natural resources by humans but means intimately linked relations with the surrounding beings – a relational ontology (Escobar 2020). Those relations are regulated by institutions (rules), which are elaborated in everyday interactions between local humans and more-than-humans, in this case jaguars. Although western views, due to their inherent separation between humans and nature, tend to focus exclusively on human use and agency when it comes to the management of natural resources, to Napo Runa and many other indigenous peoples nonhuman agency constitutes the basis on which human-nonhuman interactions, as well as the use of forest resources are built (Uzendoski 2012; Kohn 2013). This is evidenced in their common-pool institutions which are co-constituted with nonhumans as active agents.

This paper therefore argues that Commons with only humans as decision makers does not make sense. In order to have a more inclusive definition of the Commons, we need to look beyond science-based perspectives which consider Commons as a human tool to manage resources sustainably (Ostrom 1990) and have an inherent nature-culture dualism. Instead, this paper considers local indigenous perspectives on Commons and proposes such more-than-human Commons as a way for more sustainable human-nature interactions based on conviviality instead of conflict.

The paper starts with a methods section, followed by the theories and concepts used. I then situate mainstream conservation theory within a dominant western nature-culture dualism and show how convivial conservation parts from this paradigm, while conservation practice in Ecuador remains conflict-focused and often unjust. The paper continues with a section on local rules that allow a human-jaguar conviviality, followed by a section on local views on Commons. In a third part, outside influences which put pressure on local views are discussed. Finally, the discussion brings the different sections together in arguing for the consideration of local views, not only for conservation but also in Commons theory.

Methods

Fieldwork was based primarily in an indigenous Napo Runa community on the Napo River, on the Ecuador–Peru border, 300 km by boat from the nearest city, San Francisco de Orellana, and complemented by shorter stays in several communities around Tena and Archidona in the upper Napo region. Data collection spanned three periods between 2021 and 2024, totaling 12 months. Approval for the use and publication of material was secured at the outset, through an oral negotiation of a code of conduct during a community assembly, as required locally; sustained, close engagement over time built the trust needed to address concerns as they arose. The author’s institution has no formal ethics review process.

Methodologically, the study relies chiefly on participant observation, complemented by informal, semi-structured and expert interviews, with focus group discussions added in the final stage. Informal interviews with community members and NGO representatives provided early orientation; semi-structured and expert interviews with wildlife ecologists, environmental NGO representatives, and community members deepened specific aspects later on. Focus groups in two communities explored more experimental ideas around bottom-up institution building. Nearly all interviews were conducted in Spanish, the primary daily language for most residents. Some, especially with elders, were held in Kichwa and translated into Spanish. All English translations are my own. Field notes and interviews were analyzed as a combined data set through coding and memoing (Emerson et al. 2011; Crang and Cook 2007).

Theory

Theoretically, this paper draws on Commons theory and New Institutionalism (Ensminger 1992) to emphasize the importance of communally managed resources and bottom-up institution building processes for conviviality. Ostrom was the first and best known author to prove Hardin wrong in his assumption that common property was owned by no one and demonstrated that Commons were usually managed with institutions or rules. Later, Jean Ensminger developed a model on institutional change, which shows how external factors influence relative prices which again have a local impact (Ensminger 1992). Even though Ostrom and Ensminger treated the Commons with a modern western and hence economistic rationale from which I depart in this paper, their work serves to theoretically analyze current situations. If expanded by the importance of political and environmental conditions (Haller 2013, 2019) Ensminger’s model serves as a theoretical tool for analyzing institutional and value change over time. It especially serves to identify how different organizations, institutions and ideologies influence each other differently according to their bargaining power, which helps to understand current power dynamics of a specific situation. I thus argue that looking through the lens of New Institutionalism, combined with Political Ecology and the Commons allows us to frame Napo Runa conviviality as a constant negotiation of rules with both internal and external actors.

Regarding conviviality, this paper draws on scholars in anthropology and geography who have worked with the term conviviality to describe how humans interact in everyday life to create shared social worlds (Gilroy 2004; Watson 2006; Irving 2017). I see conviviality as a way of living with and being in interaction with different beings, aligned with Ivan Illich’s definition of conviviality (1973).

In contrast to a conservationist perspective, which is based in a dualist human-nature understanding, I ask what conviviality means from an emic perspective regarding living with wildlife. With important exceptions regarding conviviality in cities (Whatmore and Hinchliffe 2002), conviviality in conservation often stays a concept imposed from the outside with the goal of integrating humans and wildlife in cooperative, ethical and equitable ways. In this paper however, conviviality refers to everything that the living with jaguars means from an emic, indigenous perspective. While in conservation, conviviality and coexistence have often developed out of an understanding of having to reduce conflict between humans and wildlife (for important exceptions see work evolving out of Büscher and Fletcher 2020; Massarella et al. 2023), for Napo Runa people coexistence does not start with conflict and hence there is nothing to be reduced. Rather, coexistence is about living and letting live in a predatory and relational world. Zooming in on a more specific conviviality between humans and jaguars, it is also based on a mutual respect at eye-level.

Taking seriously local indigenous perspectives on conviviality, which includes more-than-humans in the management of natural resources, I argue for the importance of expanding the definition of the Commons to include more-than-human beings as active agents in management decisions (see e.g. Haller 2019; Helfrich and Bollier 2019). Hence, while Commons can and should be used as a lens to see landscapes as humanly made (see e.g. Fairhead and Leach 1996; Berkes 2012 [1999]; Haller 2007; Haller et al. 2013), they are also made by more-than-humans. Far away from colonial and post-colonial ideologies, which label landscapes as pure nature free of humans to access its resources, this paper follows local and indigenous views in arguing for the consideration of both humans and nonhumans as actors in the coproduction of landscapes and Commons.

Several scholars in different fields have contributed to the extension of Commons theory to include nonhuman agency. On the one hand, scholars within the fields of diverse economies and political ontology largely reject Ostrom’s emphasis on universal principles but instead focus on diversity in Commons governance, emphasizing the need to consider local contexts and nonwestern perspectives (Gibson-Graham et al. 2013; Law 2015; de la Cadena and Blaser 2018; Helfrich and Bollier 2019; Escobar 2020). Additionally, recent studies in urban political ecology (UPE) have advocated for incorporating multiple perspectives and methods to understand the functions and qualities of diverse cities (Heynen et al. 2006; Lawhon et al. 2014). This approach aligns with Ostrom’s emphasis on polycentric governance and goes beyond it by recognizing the value of non-Western ontologies in shaping urban environments. This paper provides an empirical example that supports claims from political ontology to include nonhuman agency when it comes to resource management, and brings it together with Commons theory, considering nonhuman agency especially important in the Commons. Bringing New Institutionalism and Commons theory into conversation with conviviality highlights how local knowledge systems, which often provide the foundation for Commons, constitute institutional arrangements (Ensminger 1992) that have long enabled communities to address complex issues such as predator–human relations. They are, in this sense, the ground upon which conviviality is built.

Western Views on Nature Management

Western views grounded in naturalism tend to frame natural resource management primarily in terms of human use and agency, reflecting a fundamental nature–culture dualism. Philippe Descola (2013) argues that naturalism, which is characteristic of modern Western scientific thought, is distinguished from other ontologies by its separation of humans from the rest of nature. Although scholars within the ontological turn have debated the applicability of Descola’s structuralist framework, many agree that modern capitalist worldviews are marked by this human–nature divide (Kohn 2013; De la Cadena and Blaser 2018; Escobar 2020; Bollig and Krause 2023).

This dualism has long shaped modern conservation approaches, from fortress and community-based conservation to neoliberal models, often framing humans as the primary source of environmental degradation and legitimizing the separation of people from nature through displacement and exclusion (Fairhead and Leach 1996; Escobar 1999; Brockington and Igoe 2006; Fletcher 2010; Haller 2013; West 2016; Sullivan 2017). Consequently, human–wildlife interaction has become a central concern in conservation, with natural science literature focusing extensively on managing human–wildlife conflict, particularly in predator–human relations (van Eeden et al. 2017; Frank and Glikman 2019).

More recently however, scholars have called for a shift from conflict toward coexistence, emphasizing that human–wildlife relations exist along a continuum shaped by cultural, emotional, and social factors rather than being inherently antagonistic (Frank 2016). Research on predator–human relations increasingly highlights tolerance and conviviality as alternative frameworks for understanding coexistence (Margulies and Karanth 2018; Büscher and Fletcher 2020; Fletcher and Toncheva 2021; Komi and Kröger 2023; Donfrancesco 2024). The convivial conservation approach critiques exclusionary conservation models and promotes coexistence by emphasizing the interconnectedness of human and nonhuman life, inclusive local participation, ecologically sustainable and socially equitable economic models, and the integration of conservation into everyday life (Büscher and Fletcher 2020; Massarella et al. 2023: 18). While its practical feasibility remains contested, convivial conservation has significantly contributed to rethinking conservation beyond the conflict paradigm.

Nevertheless, conservation practice in Ecuador, and especially in the Napo region, has not yet embraced this shift. Interviews with conservationists as well as analysis of governmental strategies reveal that large predators such as jaguars are still widely framed as threats, with rural communities portrayed as primarily responsible for their decline. The national management plans of the Ministry of Environment of Ecuador identify habitat loss and fragmentation, primarily driven by oil extraction, logging, and infrastructure expansion, as the principal threat to jaguars, followed by human–jaguar conflict, retaliatory killings, and prey depletion associated with local hunting (MAE and WSC 2014, MAATE 2022). Scientific studies (Mena et al. 2020, Figueroa 2019, Suárez and Zapata-Ríos 2019, Espinosa et al. 2016) and interview data from 3 interviews with jaguar conservation experts from WCS and WWF Ecuador corroborate that extractive industries and associated road-building significantly contribute to deforestation and declining jaguar habitats.

However, conservation interventions disproportionately target rural and Indigenous communities: NGOs and state actors promote livelihood changes (e.g., livestock and cocoa projects) explicitly aimed at reducing hunting (community member, interview, 23.2.2022; WWF official 1, interview, 24.11.2023), and frame jaguar killings as outcomes of local practices such as dog-assisted hunting or livestock depredation (WWF official 2, interview, 10.3.2022; WCS official, interview, 14.11.2023). This focus persists despite internal recognition that large-scale economic activities are the principal drivers of habitat loss, reflecting a broader structural bias in conservation practice in which powerful actors driving environmental degradation remain largely unaddressed, while responsibility is shifted onto marginalized rural populations (Büscher and Fletcher 2019).

This conflict-centered view leaves little space for coexistence or conviviality, while proposed solutions often involve ecotourism or payments for ecosystem services which reinforce neoliberal conservation and the commodification of nature. Thus, despite advances in academic debates, conservation on the ground in Ecuador remains entrenched in a dualistic and market-oriented framework that overlooks possibilities of convivial approaches.

Rules of Conviviality

In contrast to dualist conservation practices, this paper argues that local indigenous views have allowed for more convivial human-environment interactions based on communally elaborated and constantly (re)negotiated rules. The Commons in this study include roughly 10’000 ha of forest land, the indigenous community living on and caring for it, and the rules they establish for using the land and its resources. Ecuadorian community members are proprietors of their land including the resources on it (Schlager and Ostrom 1992). In the following, I discuss three places of encounter between humans and jaguars and the respective rules associated with each space.

While the Commons of the studied community can be divided into different human use areas, especially the forest harbors a diverse array of actors with whom to negotiate use of resources. Concretely, when it comes to hunting, even though members of the community all have the right to hunt for subsistence, the decision about the outcome of a hunting or foraging party is not an entirely human affair. Specifically, jaguars are considered persons with agency and purpose in their actions. As one community member said: “You never see the man [the jaguar]. You walk in the forest, and you feel watched, but you never see him. On your way back home [from a hunting expedition] however, you will find his footprints on the ground” (Napo Runa community member, informal conversation, 3.9.2022).

During forest encounters, it is the jaguar who decides over the outcome of the encounter and hence dominates the rules. When a human and a jaguar meet, the jaguar looks at the human and decides whether this being is predator or prey. Perspectivism, as conceptualized by Eduardo Viveiros de Castro (1998), is based on a hierarchy of predation, going top-down from eater to eaten. Since jaguars and humans are potentially at the same level in this hierarchy, the jaguar must find out if this human is to be located below himself as prey or at eye-level (or even above) as predator. Usually, he concludes that the human is a predator like himself and respects him as on a par. ¹ In this case, he would turn around and walk away. Should the jaguar conclude that the human is prey however, he may attack with the possibility of deadly consequences (see also Kohn 2013: 1 on similar descriptions regarding human-jaguar encounters).

From a local Napo Runa perspective, jaguars are not animals in a western understanding but persons with agency and hence to be respected at eye level. This does not mean that Napo Runa people are anthropomorphizing animals but simply that from their perspective, the limits around who is human and who is not are drawn differently. Napo Runa perspectives align with an animist ontology as described by Descola (2013), or even more accurate, perspectivism as described by Viveiros de Castro (1998). As the forest encounter scenario shows, the jaguar has agency, and people talk about him, not about it. He or she is a person, with agency, with a purpose and both humans and jaguars respect each other as on a level playing ground.

A second place of encounter between humans and jaguars lies close to human settlements; a space dominated by humans. As one community member told me, when roaming in the forest, dogs are attacked and killed by jaguars. In the house and garden spaces however, the jaguar respects the human as the owner of the space and leaves the dogs alone (Napo Runa community member, informal conversation, 29.11.2021). Sometimes however, and there are different theories as to why and when this occurs as elaborated below, jaguars enter the human living space and kill animals that stand near their human caretakers. In the community of this paper, these are usually either pigs, chicken or dogs. This does not necessarily and automatically constitute a problem. If a jaguar just takes one pig for example, community members usually let him. But if he repeatedly comes back and kills more livestock, he crosses the boundaries of established rules. Hence, the humans might follow him with their dogs into the forest and hunt him. And if they can, kill him.

Why jaguars transgress human boundaries depends on their intention and identity. According to local indigenous knowledge, it can be either a ‘forest jaguar’ (sachapuma) who is just hungry or a ‘human jaguar’ (runapuma) sent by a shaman to do harm (Napo Runa community member, informal conversation, 13.7.2024). As described elsewhere (Shepard 2014), it might also be a recently deceased relative who comes to claim their share of the food. Through Ayahuasca visions it is possible to find out what kind of jaguar it was and to take respective action. If it was a ‘normal’ forest jaguar, a shaman might just send him away, so he does not come back. If it was a human jaguar, the shaman might send him back to the family he came from in a warlike act of revenge.

Finally, and related to the just described visions, the spiritual realm constitutes a third place of frequent encounter between humans and jaguars, where negotiations and clarifications about rules take place. This includes visions and dreaming, or the realm of spirits. Shamans and sometimes also other people go on hallucinogenic journeys, especially with Ayahuasca, to find solutions or answers to difficult questions. This is where jaguars often appear as opponents to be defeated or also as advisors. Additionally, jaguars also bear a special significance in dreams, where they can be messengers between the spirit and the human world, transmitting messages from the owners of the forest to its human users.

While the physical forest encounters follow pragmatic rules, the boundary between humans and jaguars is not fixed but permeable. Through specific practices, such as feeding infants pumayuyo, a plant that enables transformation, people may become jaguars after death, and shamans are known to shift between human and jaguar forms. These transformations are again grounded in a perspectivist ontology, in which bodily form is understood as a temporary ‘clothing’ that conceals an underlying human essence (de Castro 1998). As a result, encounters with jaguars cannot be interpreted solely in biological terms: an attack may represent the action of a transformed ancestor, the aggression of a rival shaman, or punishment by forest spirits for breaking hunting rules. Human-jaguar relations therefore acquire a complex and multi-layered character, in which humans and nonhumans are intertwined rather than separate.

All these rules and practices illustrate that the Napo Runa worldview is profoundly relational, grounded in reciprocal recognition and negotiation between humans, nonhumans, and spirits. Rather than a dualist separation between nature and culture, the Napo Runa world is constituted through ongoing relationships among diverse beings who share agency, intention, and moral standing. The rules governing interactions with jaguars—whether in the forest, around human settlements, or within spiritual realms—are continuously negotiated between both humans and jaguars through encounters, visions, and mutual communication. These dynamic and situational negotiations underscore a worldview in which coexistence depends on maintaining balance, mutual respect, and attentiveness to other-than-human perspectives. Ultimately, the Napo Runa Commons, both material and spiritual, are sustained through this relational ontology, where being and knowing emerge from the web of interactions that connect humans, jaguars, and the living forest.

Spirit Owners

Extending the notion of nonhuman participation in the forest Commons, I propose that from a local indigenous perspective, nonhumans not only partake in but also embody forms of ownership within these socio-ecological relations. Bird-David (1990) argues that hunter-gatherers see the forest as a parent, and hence the environment as the unconditional giving entity. This is a perspective where people see themselves interconnected with the forest, relying on it as a living, spiritual presence. Identically, the Napo Runa consider the forest a living being which provides life to people. The forest’s power is manifested in spirits that demand reciprocity in the sense that humans are obliged to follow rules that the forest spirits establish to receive abundant game for their survival. Those spirits are the owners of the forest and its Commons; though not owners in a western sense.

During our fieldwork, Napo Runa hunters both from the Upper and the Lower Napo have recounted their encounters with such spirits. One of them is called juri-juri, and according to one elder from the Upper Napo protects the black guans (Chamaepetes unicolor). „The juri-juri is a huge demon and when you go out to hunt he could eat you in an instant. I have met him as well. […] Once we went hunting, we found many black guans, […] and they were really tame; but in this tree there was a hole and inside sat the juri-juri. I saw him and got scared, and I did not shoot the guans. When I saw him I had to run for my life […]. I saw that he has no tail, he looks like a sloth. From that moment on I never went back to that place. The shamans consumed Ayahuasca and saw that it really was him […].“ (Avila elder, informal conversation, 27.12.2023)

Those spirits are owners or masters in the sense described by Fausto (2008): a relationship of both ownership, authority, domination, care and protection. The position of owner stands in relation to a dominated, to be protected, in some instances to be cared for thing or being. This means that the spirit owners of the forest beings dominate and decide over, but also care for and protect certain animal species, which are part of the human Commons. As the examples above show, spirit masters protect game animals from being overhunted, guarding them against human hunters. In a conversation among three elders from the Upper Napo, they talked about the importance of only taking what you need when hunting. That if a hunter respects nature and only kills the animals that he needs in this instant, there is no need to be afraid of the forest and its spirits (Three elders from Archidona, Ahuano and Alto Huambuno, focus group conversation, 2.1.2024).

In this hierarchy of owners to owned, predator to prey, the spirit masters stand at the top as owners of the forest (see also Hultkrantz 1982). Many Amazonians consider jaguars, together with anacondas and harpy eagles, as the primordial owner-master position, because spirits seem to prefer top predators to manifest themselves in (Whitten 1976; Viveiros de Castro 1998; Fausto 2008). In the forest Commons of the researched community, there is a mysterious place called the blind lagoon. According to community members, a black jaguar lives there (community member Martin, informal conversation, 16.2.2022). Others have reported seeing a giant anaconda in the lagoon, who produces a rainstorm by whirling up the water of the lagoon whenever someone gets close. Such places also exist in the Upper Napo region. Three elders were talking about two different waterfalls with special energy. They recounted how in their younger days they went to these waterfalls as hunters, knowing that there was abundant game, but whenever they arrived, the sky got dark, and if they tried to shoot one of the many animals, thunder, lightning, and intense rain would make them run off. The elders also said that today no-one goes there anymore because strange things have happened, people have gotten sick or even disappeared.² These places can only be accessed after being on strict diets, not consuming any artificial foods, alcohol, salt or sugar (Three community elders from Archidona, Ahuano and Alto Huambuno, focus group conversation, 2.1.2024).

The Amazonian forest hierarchy of masters to mastered or owners to owned means that humans cannot own the forest. It is the spirits, which represent Pachamama herself, who are the owners of the forest. Humans, from a Napo Runa perspective, are merely tolerated users. As long as they follow the rules that the forest and its spirits control, they can live in this environment. This is a fundamental contrast to western ways of considering humans being dominating over nature, and it also stands in difference to perspectives who hold that the forest is an unconditionally giving parent.

Outside Influences

Nevertheless, those local views on Commons do not exist in isolation, but have been in constant interaction with various others, including so-called western ones. I use the concept of the perennial frontier, which has been used to describe the Amazon as a place where outside actors constantly abstract land and resources from their context along capitalist logics (and hence free them for new forms of appropriation) as well as eradicate existing institutions and opening space for new ones (Little 2001). Applying New Institutionalism (Ensminger 1992) to analyze institutional change shows that over time, different perspectives and values have been dominant in the Amazonian region of Ecuador. Specifically, settler and conservation ideology have influenced indigenous perspectives at different moments over time. Today, indigenous peoples, settlers and conservationists compete for the power to decide over which rules are to be followed in the lower Napo.

Within this context, a key aspect that had changed along with the rise of capitalism in the Ecuadorian Amazon was that the capacity for mutual adaptation of people and jaguars was profoundly altered and undermined, leading not only to increased impacts of humans on jaguars but also of jaguars on humans, affecting broader human-jaguar relations in general. First, industrial capitalism, which is represented in the lower Napo by settler values, introduces two principal factors which influence the value change of jaguars. On the one hand, as has been argued similarly for human-wolf relations in Finland (Komi and Kröger 2023), the introduction and gradual spread of Christianity introduced a new ideology based on the great chain of being, hence humans at the top of creation dominating over all other beings. Together with the commodification of jaguars, this allowed for more jaguar hunting.

Second, the introduction of large, domesticated animals led to increased pressure on humans because jaguars prey on livestock. According to Morales Garcia et al., this brought a change in the perception of jaguars from being heavily symbolically charged sacred beings to being labelled as problematic beings signifying the bad (2021: 33). Hence, a value change of jaguars from spiritually powerful beings to objectified, material commodities became possible. Additionally, overexploitation of natural resources, thanks to extractivist capitalism, created a value increase and legitimation for nature conservation. This led to a second value shift, where postmodern capitalism, represented by conservation values, re-assigns the jaguar its value as a lively being. However, in contrast to indigenous views, it continues being an objectified commodity, a view introduced by settlers. I argue that the separation of humanity from nature for the benefits of capital accumulation was central to inducing this value change.

Regarding the frontier, I agree with Rasmussen and Lund that “[t]he frontier moment is a reconfiguration of the conditions of possibility” (Rasmussen and Lund 2018: 391). Nevertheless, such a reconfiguration does not necessarily and always mean a total loss for former inhabitants of an area. On the one hand, I agree with Komi and Kröger’s argument that the land which was made State land through colonial times and privatized during postcolonial times is to be seen “as a resource frontier advancing capitalism through the ideological creation of “natural resources” out of the web of life” (Komi and Kröger 2023: 503). However, in contrast to other countries, the land privatization which had taken place during the Agrarian reform in Ecuador was partly reversed with the subsequent allocation of global ownership titles for indigenous communities. This re-communalization allows for the maintenance of indigenous institutions which create the conviviality humans and jaguars partly live in the lower Napo today.

Discussion

Valerio Donfrancesco (2024) argues for reclaiming the role of the Commons to improve human-wolf relations in Italy. Similarly, George Iordachescu (2022) argues for the importance of the Commons when it comes to sustainable nature conservation. The following discussion consists of four parts, each part building on the former, supporting the argument that Commons are important for conviviality, and ultimately, for sustainable human-environment interactions.

First, this paper argues that jaguars are active agents in their forest Commons. The descriptions of human–jaguar institutions presented above demonstrate that, from a Napo Runa perspective rooted in perspectivism, jaguars and, very importantly, also many other nonhumans³ are not merely users of the Commons but also exercise decision-making power over access and use of the forest: managing and, in some cases, even prohibiting entry. From a perspectivist standpoint, the boundaries of what counts as ‘human’ are drawn differently than in naturalist ontologies. Consequently, many nonhuman beings are regarded as persons and active agents within the Commons. Jaguars, as representatives of forest spirits, occupy a particularly important position: through their presence and agency as guardians of the forest, they co-determine the rules governing resource use and, from an emic perspective, may be understood as proprietors (Schlager and Ostrom 1992) of the Commons.

Conviviality between Napo Runa people and jaguars is founded on mutual respect and on rules that are continuously enacted and renegotiated. As Ostrom (1990) has argued, the management of common-pool resources (CPRs) functions effectively when institutions are collectively shaped and owned by local actors. Recognizing jaguars as agents suggests that such inclusive governance already exists within the Napo Runa Commons. Viewing this forest Commons system from a local indigenous perspective thus highlights the importance of accounting for more-than-human participation in the management of shared resources.

Hence, a western ontological perspective, where everything else than humans is regarded a resource managed by humans for their use, is restrictive and not enough to describe what (Napo Runa) Commons are. In a second step, I therefore follow Helfrich and Bollier (2019) and propose an expansion of Elinor Ostrom’s (1990) definition of the Commons, which conceptualizes them as a human tool for the sustainable management of shared resources. Rather than presupposing an ontological divide between humans and all other beings, a dualism that holds little meaning for indigenous Commoners in the Amazon, the Commons framework can and should be broadened to include nonhuman actors as participants. Even though there is a human space in the Commons, it makes up only a small part of the whole Commons, which is embedded in a forest world dominated by spirit owners, who preferably manifest themselves in the form of jaguars and other predators.

Third, it is important to acknowledge that the local conviviality is contested, because the local ontology is not accepted as such by outside actors. In describing local ways of dealing with jaguars, this paper shows that while this animal definitely can be dangerous, it is only potentially conflictive and not perceived as a problem per se. Nevertheless, seen from a global conservation perspective, there is a problem: there are less and less jaguars, which are considered important animals for the Amazonian ecosystem. Therefore, from a conservation perspective, they must be protected and their habitat conserved. Thus, even though Napo Runa conviviality with jaguars and other forest beings reflects a relational Commons system which functions according to situated, constantly (re-)negotiated rules allowing a pragmatic human-jaguar conviviality, this understanding remains unacknowledged by conservation and other external actors. The primary reason being enduring power asymmetries that privilege western ontologies and devalue indigenous knowledge systems.

I argue that conservationists’ failure of acknowledging both individual motivations, politico-economic processes as well as ontological differences prevents them from achieving their goal of effectively protecting and reaching a coexistence with jaguars. Ontology, geographical location, individual motivations as well as structural political-economic processes are all factors which make the human dimension of human-jaguar relations very complex and can be seen as one reason for why various studies emphasize the lack of data about the underlying reasons for human-wildlife conflicts (van Eeden et al. 2017; Carter et al. 2019; Hodgson et al. 2020). As long as those methodological issues are not solved differently by conservation actors, Commons as an alternative to public or private forms of resource management provide ways for local institutions to thrive.

Finally, I therefore argue that Commons play a crucial role in fostering conservation, and sustainable human–environment relations, because they enable locally grounded forms of conviviality that neither capitalist development nor conventional conservation can reproduce. In Ecuador, communal land ownership constitutes a dominant form of political organization in rural areas (Rayner and Merida 2019: 22): to obtain title, groups must demonstrate longstanding territorial presence and land-based practices, after which they can govern their territories as Commons according to their own ontologies.

While development models are often framed as strengthening local institutions, in practice they tend to reorient decision-making toward market imperatives and external actors, and conventional conservation similarly imposes externally defined management goals. By contrast, communal tenure in the Ecuadorian Amazon partly⁴ enables indigenous communities to maintain autonomy through territory-based, experience-driven institutions. The community discussed here, holding title to roughly 10,000 hectares, is formally empowered to define rules of resource use; crucially, these are grounded in a relational understanding in which humans are embedded within a broader living system. Within this framework, nonhumans—particularly jaguars—are not passive objects of management but co-constitutive of the norms and practices that govern the Commons, illustrating how convivial conservation operates not by replacing local institutions but by securing the conditions under which they can persist and adapt.

Commons are thus a vital foundation for conviviality. They serve as key instruments for fostering locally grounded solutions to global conservation challenges by enabling autonomy, collective decision-making, and the recognition of local knowledge. Following Iordachescu (2022), I thus see Commons as a way for convivial conservation (Büscher and Fletcher 2020), a framework in which natural resource management operates according to internally sanctioned principles, aligns with landscape-centered conservation, and emphasizes long-term engagement.

Conclusion

Human–jaguar relations in the Napo Runa Commons demonstrate that coexistence is not grounded in the separation of humans and wildlife, nor in the absence of danger and predation, but in ongoing negotiation and mutual recognition between different beings. Jaguars actively shape access to and use of the forest Commons, while conflict with conservation actors emerges partly from incompatible ontologies regarding what jaguars are: protected objects, dangerous predators, or relational persons embedded in a shared world.

In summary, this paper demonstrates that dominant western conservation models remain shaped by a nature–culture dualism that situates humans outside of, and often in opposition to, their environments. Despite recent theoretical advances such as convivial conservation, which call for inclusive, relational, and post-capitalist approaches to human–nonhuman coexistence, practice on the ground in Ecuador continues to reproduce conflict-oriented and market-driven paradigms. In contrast, the Napo Runa ontology reveals a fundamentally different mode of engaging with the environment: one in which humans, animals, and spirits are bound by reciprocal relations and negotiated rules rather than separated by categorical boundaries. These locally grounded practices of coexistence challenge the assumptions of naturalist ontologies and underscore the relational character of the forest Commons, suggesting that sustainable conservation requires acknowledging nonhuman agency and ownership as integral to shared ecological governance.

Yet, this worldview remains largely unacknowledged by conservation and other external actors in Ecuador, whose approaches continue to privilege western ontologies and undervalue or even disregard indigenous knowledge systems. These asymmetries, coupled with the neglect of local motivations and political-economic contexts, hinder the effectiveness of conservation.

By contrast, Commons offer an alternative model for sustainable and convivial resource management, enabling locally grounded decision-making and autonomy. Strengthening Commons can thus serve as a pathway toward more equitable and relational forms of conservation that move beyond the nature–culture divide.