Samenvatting

This special edition on coexisting with reptiles (guest edited by Dr Simon Pooley) highlights our deep cultural connection with biodiversity, including the scaly, slithering kind. Moving away from Eurocentric narratives of coexistence, the articles in this issue acknowledge the tolerance of local people across the world who live in close proximity to dangerous wildlife. Here, their relationships with crocodiles, Komodo dragons and king cobras are often governed by mutual respect, fear and resignation, and neo-liberal conservation interventions could do more harm than good.