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Electric fences should be removed 6 1.60Political solutionsGovernment should assist in some way 26 6.93Collaboration between farmers 1 0.27Ask opinion of villagers 2 0.53Agricultural education 11 2.93Evict pastoralists/reduce cattle numbers 18 4.80Safari companies should assist withanimals/pastoralists4 1.07No remarksNo answer 3 0.80Do nothing 2 0.53Don’t know 3 0.80Crop raiding commentsThere were 313 comments made surrounding the issue of crop raiding. Several aredisplayed below.• ‘Crop raiding has changed-10 years ago used to be elephants and big gamenow it is all birds and bushpigs’ Mbasa• ‘The government should provide compensation for the loss of crops, eithermoney, or the amount of crops that we have lost, because the crops would giveus money for food and for other social services like health. We don’t evenhave enough money to send the children to school’ Kisegese• ‘Crop raiding has increased because there is nothing to deal with theproblems. Once COTACO company came and sprayed pesticide that killedmany birds but now the problem is still there’ Mngeta• ‘….need help to control crop raiding as the children need to go to school and Ineed to provide for them…..depend on the rice to sell as well as for food’Idunda• ‘….government should help with animal problems as starvation is gettingworse every year’ Idunda• ‘….remove animals that crop damage, so we can plant many more crops andnot worry about crop raiding’ Ihenge• ‘I think government should help us to get pesticides-have to sow seeds 3 or 4times to get one harvest’ Namwawala37
4.8 Discussion4.8.1 Crop damageThe majority of farmers within the Kilombero Valley are small scale subsistencefarmers, with 74% farming less than 2 ha. Therefore any crop damage by largespecies is likely to be catastrophic, In spite of their large size elephants can movequite fast with a walking speed of 4-6 km/h, which potentially allows them to movethrough an extensive area of agriculture in one night. When running they can attainspeeds up to 60 km/h. The main crops grown are staples, grown mainly for personalconsumption; maize, rice, cassava and banana. 34% of farmers grow only rice andmaize, leaving them vulnerable to food shortages if animals damage these crops, ascrop diversification is an important way of coping with food shortages (Kangalaweand Liwenga, 2005). Only 3.73% do not grow rice, whereas 40% do not grow maize.Any loss in these crops can have substantial effects on the livelihoods of subsistencefarmers, leading to food shortages and resulting hardships (Mwaseba et al., 2007).The estimated crop loss experienced throughout the Kilombero Valley as a result ofdamage by wild animals was an average of 63.32%. Even allowing for exaggeratedclaims of crop raiding the number of people responding as such across such a largearea allows us to give weight to these findings.Crop raiding speciesBushpig was the most commonly cited animal for causing damage to all crops, withother major species including elephants, baboons, hippos, rodents and cane rat. Whenasked for the species that caused the most damage to rice crops farmers suggested thatelephants were the worst offenders (27.7%), followed by bushpig (25.21%), birds(19.39%), hippo (17.17%), and baboon 13.30%). Baboon (38.70%) and bushpig(32.75%) caused the most damage to other crops. Puku, buffalo, vervet monkeys andcattle also caused widespread damage.Responsibility of animals causing damage varied according to the spatial context, forexample, zebra caused damage to rice crops in villages near the floodplain, whereas inareas near the forests baboons and elephants caused more damage. It also variesdepending on distance from the village, as demonstrated by a comment from a farmerin Itete Njiwa:‘Shambas far from the village experience hippo and elephants etc, those closer havebig problem with cattle’Damage also varied significantly on a temporal scale, with the months of Novemberto April seeing the worst levels of crop damage, coinciding with the sprouting and andfirst stages of maturity of the crops. There has been little evidence to suggest thatthere are clear relationships between natural food availability or elephant density withthe level of elephant damage, suggesting that the most plausible relationship is thatthe level of crop damage is due to the optimum foraging theory (Begon et al., 1986)when animals will maximise the quality of their nutrient intake wherever possible(Hoare, 2000). However, there may be a secondary effect within the KilomberoValley, where harvesting times relate to the fluctuating levels of water within thevalley, as the river floods a result of the rains the animals move out of the floodplainmoving higher into the hills. A seasonal peak in the late wet season has been shownelsewhere in savanna elephant ranges, with animals destroying maturing crops (Hoare,38
Page 3 and 4: Frontier Tanzania Environmental Res
Page 5 and 6: Kilombero Valley Teak Company (KVTC
Page 7 and 8: Drivers:Sarah Kristian WandehaOmari
Page 10 and 11: 1. Executive SummaryEcosystems are
Page 12 and 13: Within the Ruipa corridor biodivers
Page 14 and 15: 2.4 People of the ValleyThe human p
Page 16 and 17: Figure 2.2: Distribution of the mio
Page 18 and 19: are leading to increased rates of e
Page 20 and 21: conducting the interviews in privat
Page 22 and 23: 3.4.1.3 Immigration190 people inter
Page 24 and 25: 4. Crop Raiding in the Kilombero Va
Page 26 and 27: antagonism and further difficulties
Page 28 and 29: Question 4: Which crops do you grow
Page 30 and 31: Question 5: Which animals damage yo
Page 32 and 33: Table 4.4: Animals responsible for
Page 34 and 35: Question 11: How does this affect y
Page 36 and 37: Pitfall traps 19 5.07Arrows 11 2.93
Page 40 and 41: 1999). When water sources higher in
Page 42 and 43: increased level of danger, as there
Page 44 and 45: 70.93% thought that they should hav
Page 46 and 47: effective (Ahmed and Fiedler, 2002)
Page 48 and 49: 5. Trophy Hunting and Local Communi
Page 50 and 51: One of the main ways that trophy hu
Page 52 and 53: Table 5.1. Assistance with the cont
Page 54 and 55: Question 2: Do you benefit from the
Page 56 and 57: Mngeta• The village does not bene
Page 58 and 59: • TSH 500,000 for village account
Page 60 and 61: Question 4: What problems do you ha
Page 62 and 63: • Not allowed to fish (3)• Not
Page 64 and 65: • If you are caught fishing or po
Page 66 and 67: Question 5: Does the hunting compan
Page 68 and 69: problem animals, as only 6.67% of p
Page 70 and 71: 5.2.7 ConclusionThe information gat
Page 72 and 73: 6. ReferencesAbdallah. J. M and Mon
Page 74 and 75: Humavindu and Barnes, 2003 M.N. Hum
Page 76: wolves, jackals and dogs: status su

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