From conflict to coexistence

Human-elephant conflict is a major cause of elephant mortality in Africa today. As people and wildlife compete over scarce resources, human-elephant conflicts negatively affect communities and pose severe challenges to governments trying to align wildlife conservation with sustainable development.

Human-elephant conflict also imposes significant costs on those people who live close to wildlife, contributing to food insecurity and in some cases, such as major crop-raiding incidents, it can lead to an immediate subsistence crisis.

Engaging with affected communities and government stakeholders is critical to the success and sustainability of any human-elephant conflict intervention. In collaboration with national governments, our work in Kenya, Uganda and Gabon illustrates how we must adapt interventions to consider underlying social, cultural and economic contexts to find effective and lasting solutions.

Ensuring human-elephant coexistence, while simultaneously conserving biodiversity and increasing benefits to local communities is our goal. The full range of such benefits is extensive and includes improved access to natural resources, improved livelihoods, improvements to social capital, sustainable food security, and reduced ecosystem degradation.