Frontier Tanzania Environmental Research - Frontier-publications ...

antagonism and further difficulties in attempting to achieve a harmonious relationshipbetween the elephants and the local people.4.5 PerceptionsPeople living in areas close to protected areas often believe that crop raiding by largemammals is the biggest problem that results from this proximity (Hill,1997;Naughton-Treves, 1997; De Boer & Baquete, 1998; Gillingham & Lee, 1999).However, several studies show that the greatest damage to crops is caused by smalleranimals such as bushpigs, birds and rodents that are resident within the farmlandmatrix rather than larger mammals that move into the farmland from the wildlife areas(Gillingham & Lee, 2003). However, when asked directly about the impact of cropraiding farmers are more likely to focus on extreme events (Lee and Graham, 2006)where a significant proportion of the crop was damaged in one occasion, rather thanthe ‘background’ damage caused continually by smaller animals. This focus onextreme events may lead to a skewed reporting of crop damage, as, whetherintentionally or unintentionally, claims of damage become exaggerated through theemphasis of these events and they can be taken to be the normal level of crop raidingrather than the exception. Deliberate exaggeration of claims can result from severalmotivating factors, for example, protestation over conservation legislation, (Madden,2004) or other issues with local government or large local companies. It can also bedriven by a desire to gain compensation, especially in areas where the government isseen to be the custodians of wildlife as any impact of wildlife on water resources orcrops is seen to be a direct cost to the local people. It is seen as the governments’responsibility rather than a consequence of being part of the system in which wildlifeand humans co-exist, and compensation is expected (Lee and Graham, 2006). Thiscan lead to large mammals, in particular elephants, being used a scapegoat for a widerange of unrelated issues, leading to retribution against them as a means ofdemonstrating that something is being done about the problem (Lee and Graham,2006). Compensation for human-wildlife conflict as a solution to these issues has hadvery limited success (Bulte and Rondeau, 2007). Additionally using elephants asscapegoats has the effect of increasing perceptions that elephants are bad, andtherefore leads to more accusations against them, and so on. Much of this stems from‘ownership’ issues. If the wildlife is seen to be owned by the government it can beused as a way of venting frustration at the government. Changing this so thatcustodianship of wildlife is given to local people may alter this attitude (Barbier, 1992;Metcalfe, 1994). Giving responsibility to local people for the use of their wildliferesources is one of the underlying motives of community based wildlife managementprogrammes.4.6 Aims and objectivesThe increase in agricultural activity within the Kilombero Valley created by theincrease in human population has led to crop raiding in this region becoming a seriousissue (Siege and Baldus, 2000), but the consequences of this to local people are not fullyestablished. The majority of studies assessing the impact of crop raiding oncommunities tend to assess the economic costs of crop loss. In subsistencecommunities the economic impacts are only one of a number important issues25