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National Workshop on Human Wildlife Conflict Management 2005 8 Modification of land use to create or secure elephant movement routes. Lessons learned 8 Can be encouraged, implemented, monitored and evaluated entirely at the local level through dialogue and consultation; 8 But only possible in a policy environment with some legitimate, enabled form of local participation in wildlife management. 10. Building on positive relationships between people and elephants 8 Coexistence of people and elephants in pastoralist societies; 8 Beliefs that elephants are humans and associated taboos concerning the killing of elephants; 8 Elephants considered as symbols of good luck in some societies (e.g. in Mali); 8 Direction of elephant movements a portent of particular events. Lessons learned 8 We still know surprisingly little about the human dimension of HEC – local attitudes and perceptions are central to the issue; 8 Working within local belief systems leads to increased tolerance towards elephants, thereby reducing HEC; 8 May only be site or society-specific solutions. 11. Conflict Resolution Committees - sharing responsibility for managing HEC 8 Local committees comprised of affected communities, relevant CBOs, NGOs, wildlife authorities and private sector, etc. who share responsibility for dealing with HEC; 8 Used successfully in Ghana, Guinea and Kenya. Lessons learned 8 Devolving responsibility to different local stakeholders helps to combat HEC more effectively; 8 More sustainable in the long-term than relying on local wildlife authority to “take care of the problem”. Common fallacies 8 “One size fits all”; 8 The intensity of HEC is directly proportional to the size of the elephant population; 8 Elephants can be easily “trained” to be deterred from crop raiding; 8 The rogue elephant theory; 8 HEC is the government’s problem and can be dealt with effectively by PAC measures alone; 8 Elephants are the most serious pest species. So, what can we conclude 8 Coexistence of people and elephants in pastoralist societies; 8 Beliefs that elephants are humans and associated taboos concerning the killing of elephants; 8 Elephants considered as symbols of good luck in some societies (e.g. in Mali); 8 Direction of elephant movements a portent of particular events. AfESG’s HEC tools and products: 8 Numerous technical briefs and case studies available in French, English and Portuguese on AfESG website: www.iucn.org/afesg 8 African Elephant Library has a sub-set 50 of 4,700 abstracted references: www.elephant.chebucto.ns.ca
National Workshop on Human Wildlife Conflict Management 2005 8 Development of a standardised monitoring and information management system Leo Niskanen (IUCN/HECTF) Why collect data on HEC • To find out the nature of the conflict; • To find out where conflict occurs; • To find out when conflict occurs; • To find out its intensity; • To find out who is being affected; • To find out why conflict occurs; • To help design effective mitigation strategies; • To establish a baseline against which the effectiveness of these mitigation strategies can be measured. Background to the development of a standardized HEC data collection system • Past studies on HEC have been independently set up, conducted by different methods and the results presented in various ways; • A standardized system is required to allow valid comparisons to be made about levels of HEC and to help understand the driving forces behind HEC; • This is the first step in the development of effective mitigation strategies. The principles of assessing crop damage Assessing economic effects of crop damage - the largest category of elephant incidents - is problematic because: • Crop yields are site-specific; • Crop values and prices vary within and between countries; • Data collection of damage often relies on assessments by different enumerators; • Different sampling strategies are used. METHOD 1: number of “damage events” reported to an authority Advantages: • Gives a general idea of level of conflict and allows general comparisons of conflict intensity between sites; • Low cost; • Involves minimum effort. Disadvantages: • Little distinction between ‘visits’ and ‘raids’; • Can be very misleading. METHOD 2: actual losses to crops due to elephants (measured and quantified by an enumerator) 51
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HWCM - Ministry of Environment and Tourism

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