Turning human-elephant conflict into human-elephant coexistence
Infrastructure development, human encroachment and logging have combined to fragment the forest that were home to the Asian elephant, squeezing them into ever smaller areas.
This loss of habitat has led to increasing human-elephant conflict, mostly in the form of crop-raiding. One nocturnal raid by elephants can deprive a family of its staple food (rice) or cash crop (maize, mangos, or sugar cane) as well result in the occasional death.
We have been working with more than 20 local communities around Salakpra affected by human-elephant conflict. With help from local leaders, we recruited village monitors to work with protected area staff to record, map and measure all incidents of conflict.
It is proving highly successful in engaging local people to do their own research, and they have discovered that the problem is exacerbated by farmers planting sugarcane and orchards on ancient elephant routes and by villagers harvesting resources inside Salakpra.
As a result of sharing our data so widely, attitudes have changed and so has the debate within communities, between villagers and government officials and within government agencies. Farmers have stopped blaming elephants and accept that damage done to them is no worse than the damage done to the elephants.
Villagers and farmers want people to reduce their forest impact and, heeding their call, local leaders want the government and NGOs to help forest users develop other income-earning options to reduce their dependence on forest resources while also helping local communities restore forest where necessary.