Effective land-use key to managing human-elephant conflict

Good land-use planning that takes both people and elephant needs into account is the only long-term solution to mitigate the human-elephant conflict, Centre for Conservation and Research (CCR) - Sri Lanka, Chairman, Prithiviraj Fernando said.

Referring to a report jointly compiled by WWF-Nepal, the Nature Conservation Foundation and CCR, Fernando said most mitigation measures in use are just akin to bandaging the wounds and not treating the root cause.

Massive international investment in large-scale infrastructure projects in southern Asia will increase human-elephant conflict and cause more deaths on both sides unless much greater care is taken, it said.

The report - Review of Human-Elephant Conflict Mitigation Measures Practised in South Asia, released yesterday, funded by the World Bank as part of the World Bank-WWF Alliance for Forest Conservation and Sustainable Use, warns international investors that a clear strategy for keeping human-elephant conflict under control makes economic as well as environmental sense.

It is estimated that the economic damage caused by human-elephant conflict amounts to millions of dollars in some countries and in many cases it is those responsible for new land developments that have to foot the bill.

“Billions of dollars lined up for regional and national level infrastructural investments such as the Trans-Asian highway project and various hydro-power and irrigation projects are going to significantly increase human-elephant conflict across Asia,” Coordinator of WWF’s Asian elephant and rhino conservation programme, Christy Williams said.

Human-animal conflict is exacerbated whenever land where the animals traditionally find food and living space is taken away as human population and aspiration increases. In this situation elephants frequently raid crop fields and break down houses to get at stored crops.

Chance encounters between elephants and people, as well as efforts of people to guard against elephants, result in injury and death of humans. Harmful methods employed by people in the process result in death and injury of elephants, thereby escalating the conflict.

It analyses case by case the methods local people are using to keep elephants away from their houses and finds that to reduce the many costs of human-elephant conflict, a strategy that explains the most effective ways to mitigate the conflict is urgently needed.