Crop‐raiding by a forest ungulate in Earth's largest tropical agricultural frontier potentially costs local farmers ~ US 700 m and disproportionately penalizes smallholders

Abstract Agricultural expansion for global commodity production is a major driver of tropical deforestation. This widespread land‐use change isolates wildlife into human‐dominated landscapes, intensifying conflicts over space and resources. Crop raiding is one of the most severe and widespread forms of human–wildlife conflict (HWC), undermining rural livelihoods and reducing support for the conservation of large vertebrates, especially those incurring high local costs despite high global conservation value. The white‐lipped peccary (Tayassu pecari), a large‐herd‐living tropical ungulate and key ecological engineer, has been extirpated from much of its former range. Yet, it is considered a pest in Mato Grosso, the leading Brazilian state in soybean and maize production. We used GPS tracking, landholder interviews and landscape variables to model crop‐raiding risk across ~28, 000 rural properties in Mato Grosso. The total suitable conflict area covers 849, 009 ha, potentially causing annual economic losses of US664 million. Forest cover and connectivity were the most important predictors of conflict risk. Smallholders manage proportionally more vulnerable land than largeholders. Addressing conflict effectively requires moving beyond indiscriminate retaliatory culling, which threatens long‐term population viability. Population regulation, compensatory payments promoting coexistence and deflection of white‐lipped peccary herd movements are feasible conflict mitigation measures that should replace currently excessive retaliatory killing. Synthesis and applications. Our spatially explicit modelling identifies landscape‐scale hotspots of crop raiding by a key Neotropical forest ungulate in the southern Amazon. By predicting where conflict is most likely to occur, this approach provides actionable information for landholders and decision‐makers to proactively plan crop placement, target preventive measures and implement landscape management strategies that deflect white‐lipped peccary movements away from vulnerable fields. These applications support coexistence‐based management, reduce reliance on indiscriminate retaliatory culling and contribute to the long‐term conservation of this ecologically important and vulnerable species in rapidly expanding monocultural landscapes.